Not to be confused with the Mammoth Site

Mammoth Site

The Mammoth Site is a museum and paleontological site near Hot Springs, South Dakota. It contains the remains of fauna and flora preserved by entrapment in a karst sinkhole during the Pleistocene era. Mammoth bones were found at the site in 1974, and a museum and building enclosing the site were...

 in Hot Springs

Hot Springs, South Dakota

Hot Springs is a city in Fall River County, South Dakota, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,711. It is the county seat of Fall River County...

, South Dakota

South Dakota

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. Once a part of Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889. The state has an area of and an estimated population of just over...

Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot spring

Hot spring

A hot spring is a spring that is produced by the emergence of geothermally heated groundwater from the Earth's crust. There are geothermal hot springs in many locations all over the crust of the earth.-Definitions:...

s on a hill of travertine

Travertine

Travertine is a form of limestone deposited by mineral springs, especially hot springs. Travertine often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, and cream-colored varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot...

 in Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone National Park, established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872, is a national park located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, although it also extends into Montana and Idaho...

 adjacent to Fort Yellowstone

Fort Yellowstone

-See also:* Grand Loop Road Historic District* Lake Fish Hatchery Historic District* Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District* North Entrance Road Historic District* Roosevelt Lodge Historic District* Old Faithful Historic District* US Post Office-Yellowstone Main...

 and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District

Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District

The Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District in Yellowstone National Park comprises the administrative center for the park. It is composed of two major parts: Fort Yellowstone, the military administrative center for the park in the years immediately following its founding as the world's first...

. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate

Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks in all parts of the world, and is the main component of shells of marine organisms, snails, coal balls, pearls, and eggshells. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime,...

 (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Although these springs lie outside the caldera

Caldera

A caldera is a cauldron-like volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption, such as the one at Yellowstone National Park in the US. They are sometimes confused with volcanic craters...

 boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas.

The hot water that feeds Mammoth comes from Norris Geyser Basin after traveling underground via a fault line that runs through limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

 and roughly parallel to the Norris-to-Mammoth road (the limestone is the source of the calcium carbonate). Shallow circulation along this corridor allows Norris' superheated water to slightly cool before surfacing at Mammoth, generally at about 170 °F (76.7 °C). Algae

Algae

Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...

 living in the warm pools have tinted the travertine shades of brown, orange, red, and green.
Thermal activity here is extensive both over time and distance. Terrace Mountain at Mammoth Hot Springs is the largest known carbonate-depositing spring in the world. The most famous feature at the springs is the Minerva Terrace, a series of travertine terraces. The terraces have been deposited by the spring over many years but, due to recent minor earthquake

Earthquake

An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...

 activity, the spring vent has shifted, rendering the terraces dry.
The Mammoth Terraces extend all the way from the hillside, across the Parade Ground, and down to Boiling River. The Mammoth Hotel, as well as all of Fort Yellowstone

Fort Yellowstone

-See also:* Grand Loop Road Historic District* Lake Fish Hatchery Historic District* Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District* North Entrance Road Historic District* Roosevelt Lodge Historic District* Old Faithful Historic District* US Post Office-Yellowstone Main...

, is built upon an old terrace formation known as Hotel Terrace. There was some concern when construction began in 1891 on the fort site that the hollow ground would not support the weight of the buildings. Several large sink holes (fenced off) can be seen out on the Parade Ground. This area has been thermally active for several thousand years.

The Mammoth area exhibits much evidence of glacial

Glacier

A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

 activity from the Pinedale Glaciation. The summit of Terrace Mountain is covered with glacial till, thereby dating the travertine formation there to earlier than the end of the Pinedale Glaciation. Several thermal kame

Kame

A kame is a geological feature, an irregularly shaped hill or mound composed of sand, gravel and till that accumulates in a depression on a retreating glacier, and is then deposited on the land surface with further melting of the glacier...

s, including Capitol Hill and Dude Hill, are major features of the Mammoth Village area. Ice-marginal stream beds are in evidence in the small, narrow valleys where Floating Island Lake and Phantom Lake are found. In Gardner Canyon one can see the old, sorted gravel bed of the Gardner River covered by unsorted glacial till.

Individual named thermal features

• Angel Spring 1
• Angel Spring 2
• Angel Spring 3
• Aphrodite Terrace
• Baby Terrace
• Bath Lake
• Blue Springs (Hot Spring)|Blue Springs
• Canary Spring
• Cavern Terrace
• Ceder Tree Spring
• Cheops Mound
• Cleopatra Spring and Terrace
• Cupid Spring
• Dedolph Spring-a
• Dedolph Spring-b
• Dedolph Spring-c
• Devil's Kitchen Springs (The Sodas)
• Devils Thumb (Hot Spring)|Devils Thumb
• Fan Spring
• Fissure Ridge
• Glen Springs
• Highland Terrace
• Hymen Spring and Terrace
• Ladies' Lake
• Liberty Cap (Hot Spring)|Liberty Cap
• Little Burper
• Little Joker and spring
• Little Lucifer
• Main Spring(s) and Terrace
• Marble Terrace
• Minerva Spring and Terrace
• Mound Terrace
• Naid Spring
• Narrow Gauge Spring and Terrace
• New Blue Spring
• New Highland Terrace
• New Pallette Springs
• Opal Terrace and Spring
• Orange Spring Mound
• Painted Pool
• Palette Spring and Terrace
• Paperpicker Spring
• Poison Cave
• Poison Spring (Gaseous Hot Spring)
• Prospect Spring(s)
• Pulpit Terrace
• Rath Spring and Terrace
• Reservoir Springs
• River Styx-a
• River Styx-b
• Sidewalk Spring
• Soda Spring (Bargar-Allen & Day)
• Squirrel Springs and Squirrel Ridge
• Sulpher Pits
• Sulpher Spring
• Tangerine Spring
• The Buttress
• The Esplanade (Hot Spring)|The Esplanade
• The Grottos
• Trail Springs
• White Elephant Back Springs & Terrace

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