The HD-YLAKE science team has converged on Yellowstone National Park for their third and final field season. While some science teams are collecting their long-term measuring instruments from the bottom of the lake, others are continuing to make new measurements. Although this is the last field season, in some ways this is less of an ending to the project and more of a beginning. Measurements in hand, the scientists will now spend months, even years, poring over the terabytes of data they collected. It’s a lot like putting together a giant puzzle, and the final picture will be a new understanding of what’s happening in the depths of North America’s largest high elevation lake. Read More →

Bill Seyfried, Christie Cino, Chunyang Tan, and Peter Scheuermann from the University of Minnesota are using the Yogi Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV), to analyze the chemistry of the hydrothermal vents on the bottom of Yellowstone Lake. They will be doing this in three stages. First, they collected fluid samples from previously selected hydrothermal vents. This was done using a specially designed sampler that keeps the collected fluid at the same pressure as the lake bottom, thus keeping dissolved gases from escaping. The gas escaping from hydrothermal fluids is similar to opening a soda bottle and the lowered pressure allowing bubbles of carbon dioxide to form and escape.

Second, they partially excavated the vent to prepare for the deployment of chemical sensors that will be placed there for an entire year. During this process, short sediment cores called “push cores” were taken in and around the active venting area. Bill Inskeep from the Montana State University will analyze the DNA of the microbes and how they adapt to different lake floor environments, while the University of Minnesota group will analyze the chemistry and minerals present.

Lastly, a housing was placed over the vent to funnel the hydrothermal fluids and to hold the chemical sensor in place for an entire year. The placing of the sensor is very tricky because it must be balanced on the housing and if it rests too deeply, the high water temperature can negatively affect the electronics. Their work will help characterize the chemistry of the vents and how they are changing throughout the year.

Story and photos by Louis Garcia, Louisiana State University. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Peter Scheuermann testing if the battery for the chemical sensor will float or sink. If it was able to float, then it could displace the sensor from the housing. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Close up of the probe that was used to extract fluids from various hydrothermal vents at the lake floor. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Close up of the chambers of the “Serial Sampler” where the hydrothermal fluid samples will be stored at pressures equal to the lake bottom. The tubes labelled “ARGON” were filled with gas that was used pressurize the fluids and would not chemically react with samples. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The “Serial Sampler” and chemical sensor mounted on YOGI. The multichamber storage of the Serial Sampler is located on the bottom tray and the sensor probe is attached to the arm on the left. (Photo Credit: Bill Seyfried – University of Minnesota). Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Screen shot of YOGI’s front camera of the serial sampler extracting hydrothermal fluid. The housing used to funnel the vent fluids can be seen at the bottom of the screen, to the left of the tip of the sampler. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Engineer, Daniel Rogers, inspecting the chemical sensor before it is mounted on YOGI. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Chuyang Tan preparing the battery for the chemical sensor before it is deployed to the lake floor. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Screenshot of YOGI’s front camera as the chemical sensor is placed for a yearlong deployment. The battery can be seen in its cradle at the bottom of the image. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

All 12 of the dual pressure and temperature (P/T) probes that were deployed on the Yellowstone Lake floor last year have been recovered! The majority of the recoveries were made while field testing Yogi, the new Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) operated by the Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration (GFOE) for HD-YLAKE. This year, Yogi was outfitted with a new forward-facing sonar that allows us to detect objects up to fifty meters (164 feet) in front of us. This turned out to be extremely useful because as it turns out, visibility at the bottom of the lake is only about seven meters (23 feet). The sonar system worked so well that it was able to find a beer can that had been sitting on the lake floor!

One unintended consequence of deployment of the P/T gauges was that the styrofoam crab floats used to keep the housings up right were crushed by the water pressure at the bottom of the lake. When inspecting the styrofoam floats, you can identify which housings were deployed at lower depths by how relatively crushed the floats are–the deeper the float, the more it was crushed.

The data from the P/T gauges will be used to study ground surface deformation from hydrothermal charge and discharge, lake level, and other phenomenon such as seiche waves. Ground surface deformation occurs when the lake floor deforms or changes shape due to changes in hydrothermal activity. Seiche waves are similar to the sloshing back and forth of water in a bath tub.

Story and photos by Louis Garcia, Louisiana State University. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Karen Luttrell (Center) and her Ph.D. student secure the P/T gauge to the housing for deployment during the 2016 field season. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Louis Garcia deploying the sensor and housing to the lake floor. The floats at the top kept the housings upright during deployment. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Closeup of YOGI, HDY-Lake’s ROV. The forward-facing SONAR is located in-between the two front propellers. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Closeup of the crushed crab floats. You can tell that the one in front was deployed at a much greater depth than the second one by the level of crushing that occurred. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Closeup of the crab float with the most deformation. The float’s original diameter was from the bottom of the PVC ring to the top of the washer. The retroreflective tape was pinned on last year to ensure it would stay attached. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Today, Luke McKay, Bill Inskeep, and Pat Shanks collected gravity cores in and around the focus site northeast of Stevenson Island. Gravity coring is a method that extracts a cylindrical mass of sediment up to two meters (6.5 feet) long by dropping a hollow, 100+ pound tube into the sediment from 5-10 meters (16-33 feet) off the lake floor. The downward momentum of the tube drives it into the sediment, filling the inner chamber with material that can be later used for experiments.

Before collecting any samples, the team first built a wooden covering to protect the back of the boat from the heavy coring equipment. Once the covering was installed, it was time to push off and head to the study site. The depths in this area range from 80 – 120 meters (262-394 feet), depending on what part of the venting field you are in. When we arrived at the first site we lowered the rig to 5 meters (16 feet) above the lake floor, let it free fall into the sediment, and raised it to the surface. The whole process took about 20 minutes. Everyone on the boat was hopeful as the inner tubing was removed from the gravity core to reveal that the first core had brought up … NOTHING.

Another two attempts were made, altering the height from which the rig was dropped and even trying to slowly lower it into the sediment, which all came up empty. Luke, Bill, and Pat concluded that the sediments in the location were too hard to properly core. After much deliberation, it was decided that we would move on to the next site. Once there we lowered the rig and dropped it at the new location, the coring attempt was a success! We recovered a core measuring about 40 centimeters (16 inches). While the learning curve was steep for the day, the team recovered five cores, providing valuable data about the biology and chemistry of the venting field.

Story and photos by Louis Garcia, Louisiana State University. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Luke Mckay(front) and Bill Inskeep(back) take measurements to build the wooden covering to protect the back step of the boat. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The top of the gravity coring rig with the black valve at the top visible. This valve releases pressure as the core descends into the sediment to ensure as much sediment as possible is captured. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The cutting edge of the gravity core (left). This round blade is used to more efficiently pierce the sediment and is quite sharp. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Pat shanks recovering every ounce of sediment from the core catcher for later experiments. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Luke McKay (right) and Bill Inskeep (left) inspect and clean the captured gravity core taken from a hydrothermally active area of the lake. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Bill Inskeep (left) and Luke McKay (right) measure the captured sediment core to record in their log book. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Recovering the last bit of sediment from the core catcher. The hard sediment encountered, as can be seen on the catcher, prevented the core from fully penetrating the sediment. Only sediment from the catcher was recovered for this drop. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Hard, hydrothermally altered sediments from an active venting area make for awesome samples, but difficult coring work. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

This year HD-YLake welcomes two new researchers to the project. Bill Inskeep and Luke McKay are studying the microbial ecology of the sediments beneath Yellowstone Lake. Microbes, or ‘microscopic organisms’ are living things that are so small we need a microscope to see them. Examples include bacteria, viruses, and even tiny spider-like arachnids called mites. Ecology comes from the Greek word for “house”, and is the study of the interactions between organisms and the environment in which they live. Bill and Luke are interested in understanding how the chemistry in different areas of the lake floor affects the microbial community and how the microbial community, in turn, contributes to changes in local chemistry.

The Yellowstone Lake hydrothermal venting field is a prime example of an environment dominated by single celled organisms participating in transformative Earth processes like the carbon cycle. Their research will shed light on, for example, how these microorganisms get carbon from the environment and also what types of carbon they leave behind in the environment. In addition, this research may reveal biochemical signatures from changing hydrothermal activity that could be used to identify past hydrothermal activity in other locations.

To perform these analyses, Bill and Luke are collecting shallow tubes of sediment, called cores, at sites on the lake floor with varying properties, like differences in methane concentrations, pH, or temperature. They will then extract the DNA from the resident microbial communities to examine their genomic potential for resource usage. They will also analyze the chemistry at different depths in the sediments throughout the lake. In this way, they will capture a three-dimensional profile that allows them to describe the overall microbial community and its relationship to the geochemistry of the Yellowstone lake floor.

Story and photos by Louis Garcia, Louisiana State University. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Bill Inskeep (left) and Luke McKay (right) work out the modifications necessary for the Annie to house their gravity coring rig. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Bill Inskeep (left) and Luke McKay (right) sawing a piece of plywood that will be the protective covering for the back step of the Annie. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Bill Inskeep (right) and Luke McKay (left) inspect and prepare a freshly taken gravity core from the venting field for transit. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Luke McKay inspects a gravity core with a high sulfur content that is apparent from the strong odor. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Luke McKay prepares solutions for the processing of the biological samples from the sediment cores. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The hydrothermal fluids venting from the lake floor contain gases that escaped from the magmatic system under the Park. These gases, which include things like carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, make bubbles that rise up through the lake before popping on the lake surface. On a calm morning it is easy to see them if you are on a boat right above the vent field. These bubbles are initially highly pressurized because they are under about 300 ft of water, and the bubble walls vibrate at rates of several thousand cycles per second. These vibrations are too fast to be detected by our seismometers, but we are building a custom hydrophone (underwater microphone) unit with collaborators from IS Terre in France that will allow us to monitor acoustic signals from bubbles during the seismometer deployments. We call this instrument, The Bubblephone. Photos and story by Rob Sohn, WHOI.

To test our Bubblephone, Tim Kane (green shirt) built a test tank that includes an apparatus to squirt an air bubble into the bottom of the tank to simulate gas bubbles in Yellowstone Lake. In the water beneath Tim's left hand you can see a hydrophone that senses the acoustic signal when the bubble is squirted into the water. The hydrophone signal then passes through an electronics 'magic box' designed by IS Terre engineer Jacques Grangeon (red shirt) that allows the seismometer to record the bubble signal level.

To control the bubble size we used an aquarium air diffuser (visible at the very end of the tube) that you can buy at any pet store. We like simple, inexpensive solutions to our instrumentation problems!

While the bubbles vibrate too quickly to be recorded by the seismometer, they are easy to hear with the human ear - they sound just like what you think they sound like! WHOI OBS engineer Tim Kane listens to bubbles rising up through Little Yellowstone Lake.

The team (from left to right, WHOI OBS engineer Alan Garden, IS Terre scientist Jean Vandemuelebrouck, IS Terre engineer Jacques Grangeon) is all smiles because the tests went very well. We ran tests where the Bubblephone recorded bubbles overnight and the data look good. We hope that the Bubblephone will help us understand how gas discharge rates change with time and in response to things like earthquakes and lake level during our experiment.

After the previous day’s success with the first core, the team was eager to collect as many cores as possible while the weather remained calm. With that in mind, the group was already underway on the coring rig shortly after sunrise. Click through the slideshow below to see what it’s like to work on the coring platform, which has no shelter or facilities.

Over the next few days, the coring team collected eight cores including one from each of the six sites. Several cores were 40 feet in length (previous cores from the Lake maxed out at ~28 feet), and one of the cores may have penetrated into glacial flour, meaning it may provide a complete record back to the last glaciation. Many of the cores contained significant amounts of gas, probably carbon dioxide, especially the Stevenson Island core. The team is thrilled with the coring effort and eager to see what stories the cores will reveal.

Photos by Chris Linder, WHOI. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

A cold gray dawn greeted the team, and the glassy lake surface promised a good day ahead. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Rob Sohn helps to stabilize the core before deployment at the first site, within sight of the historic Lake Hotel. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Pat Shanks (furthest right) guides the core assembly so that it fits through the 'moon pool' in between the skiffs. The pile of weights is what does the work of pushing the core barrel into the lake floor. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The gray morning gave way to a broken sky with lots of foreboding clouds, but the team made quick work at the Lake Hotel site, collecting two cores in two hours. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Rob Sohn (left) keeps an eye on the weather while Pat Shanks (right) grabs a quick bite as the rig motors to the second site of the day. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Coring is muddy work. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Processed and ready to go: one of the day's three successful cores is ready for transport to the lab. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Pat Shanks extracts pore fluid samples from the cores. The sediments are porous, and the fluids in the pores can provide important information about how the hydrothermal fluids interact with the sediment layer on their way into the lake. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

After spending the morning finishing the construction of the coring vessel, the team was eager to get out and collect their first core. Normally in the afternoon you can expect some winds to build over the lake, but today to our surprise it was flat calm. The coring team took advantage of the lull in the weather and headed to their first site of six.

Even though all of the sites are within Yellowstone Lake, each one is in a different geologic area, including a deep ‘graben’ (a ditch in between two faults), a large hydrothermal explosion crater, the deep, hydrothermally active hole east of Stevenson Island, and areas of landslide deposits. The cores from these different sites will give the team an unprecedented look at the post-glacial geological history of the lake region, including the processes by which large hydrothermal explosion craters were formed.

Photos by Chris Linder, WHOI. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

You couldn't ask for a nicer September afternoon on Yellowstone Lake. The coring vessel motors to site number one. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The coring team (from left, Pat Shanks, Sheri Fritz, Sabrina Brown, and Chris Schiller) uses lines to support the long coring tube while Mark Shapley (right) prepares to hoist it upright with a winch. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Once the core barrel is upright, it is loaded with weights and lowered into the bottom of the lake. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

To bring the core back on deck, the procedure is repeated—but this time in reverse order. It takes all six people working on the coring vessel to move the long core barrels into position. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

After successfully collecting the first core, the team raced the setting sun back to Gull Point. There were still hours of work remaining—the team had to safely remove the precious sediment cores from the barrels and store them for future analysis. Ryan O'Grady takes notes while Sabrina Brown measures a short piece of core. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The team works by headlamp to extract and label the cores. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The cores are cut into manageable sizes for transportation back to the National Lacustrine Core Facility in Minnesota, where they will be stored for future analysis. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Pat Shanks (left) and Sheri Fritz cap a piece of the deep graben core. By the time they finished, it was completely dark. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The focus of the September HD-YLAKE fieldwork is to understand the deep history of Yellowstone Lake’s hydrothermal system by studying the sediment, or mud, that has settled on the bottom of Yellowstone Lake. The deeper you dig into the sediment, the farther back into history you can go. With these cores, some of which are nearly 40 feet in length, the HD-YLAKE team can get a better understanding of how the lake’s hydrothermal system has responded to geological events, including earthquakes, volcanic activity, and changing climate — up to 15,000 years ago when glaciers were beginning to recede from Yellowstone.

The HD-YLAKE coring science team includes PIs Lisa Morgan (USGS), Pat Shanks (USGS), Sheri Fritz (U Nebraska), Cathy Whitlock (Montana State U), and Rob Sohn (WHOI), as well as graduate students Chris Schiller (Montana State U) and Sabrina Brown (U Nebraska). Retired high school teacher Michael Baker, and visiting scientist Dan Conley (Lund U, Sweden) volunteered their time and energy to the fieldwork effort.

Ryan O’Grady and Mark Shapley from the LacCore National Lacustrine Core Facility at the University of Minnesota specialize in taking deep cores from lakes all around the world. Read the captions below to see how they worked with the HD-YLAKE science team to assemble this one-of-a-kind coring vessel… in a snowstorm.

Photos by Chris Linder, WHOI. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Dr. Sheri Fritz from the University of Nebraska helps unload a mountain of equipment in the back of a pickup truck. The LacCore team drove all of the supplies to build the coring platform from Minnesota, including two Carolina skiffs stacked in a boat trailer. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

From left, Ryan O'Grady (left), Chris Schiller, Michael Baker, and Sabrina Brown unload the metal platforms that will form the decking of the coring vessel. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The long core barrels point towards the coring vessel, which now has the decking assembled, joining the two skiffs. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

After working for hours in freezing rain and wet snow, the coring vessel is finally seaworthy. Since the vessel has to pass under the Bridge Bay marina bridge, the team has to finish the assembly of the tall coring frame on the shores of Gull Point, just outside the marina. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

As the storm intensified on Monday afternoon, the team aborted the assembly. In the morning, a fresh blanket of snow covered the park, and calm waters allowed the team to pilot the vessel back out to Gull Point. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

It took eight people to push the tall metal A-frame into place on the coring vessel. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Mark Shapley climbs to the top of the A-frame to attach a series of blocks, which will be used to lower the core barrels to the lake bottom, and hoist them up when they are full of sediment. As the day wore on, the gray skies cleared, the snow melted, and the team set out to collect their first core… Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

Chris Schiller assembles the core barrels on the sandy shore of Gull Point. Clear plastic tubes are inserted into the metal tubes—these will hold the core of lake sediment and keep it intact for future analysis. Work was completed under an authorized Yellowstone Research Permit.

The best way to appreciate the scale of Yellowstone Lake is to see it from the air. Click on the images below for an aerial tour of Yellowstone Lake. Read More →