Yellowstone
Yellowstone National Park is a thermally active area with an extensive system of hot springs, fumaroles, geysers, and mudpots. There are also several hydrothermal explosion craters, which are not to be confused with calderas, which are collapse features. Eight of these hydrothermal explosion craters are in hydrothermally cemented glacial deposits, and two are in Pleistocene ash-flow tuff. Each is surrounded by a rim composed of debris derived from the crater, 10 to 30 yards high.
More than 20 large hydrothermal explosions have occurred at Yellowstone, approximately one every 700 years. The temperature of the magma reservoir below Yellowstone is believed to exceed 800° Celsius causing the heating of rocks in the region. If so, the average heat flow supplied by convection currents is 30 times greater than anywhere in the Rocky Mountains. Snowmelt and rainfall seep into the ground at a rapid rate and can conduct enough heat to raise the temperature of ground water to almost boiling.
The phenomena of geyser basins are the product of hot ground water rising close to the surface, and occasionally bubbling through. Water temperatures of 238° Celsius at 332 meters have been recorded at Norris Geyser Basin. Pocket Basin was originally an ice-dammed lake over a hydrothermal system. Melting ice during the last glacial period caused the lake to rapidly drain, causing a sudden change in pressure triggering a massive hydrothermal explosion.
Read more about this topic: Hydrothermal Explosion