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Ranger/Naturalist Sally
Plumb talks
to Institute
participants
about the geology of Yellowstone
Ranger
Plumb: "Today
we are going to talk
about how those ingredients
come together and although
Mammoth is the place
where you literally
see rocks swimming before
your eyes because of
how fast the travertine
deposits here— travertine
is what all this area
is made of.
It takes millions of years
for the ingredients to come
together and again an example
I use for the kids— this
is more effective with the
older kids anywhere from
5th grade on up— is that
I put all of human history
into a— I put all of earth
history into a single human
calendar year.
And so if
you equate that earth comes
to being on New Year's Day— it’s about the beginning
of July before there is oxygen
in the atmosphere. About
Thanksgiving time is when
the first fish appear on
the earth. The age of dinosaurs
in our imaginary calendar
year is about December 10th
until Christmas time. The
Rocky Mountain is forming
Christmas Eve— and if you
fast-forward to the very
last day in that imaginary
calendar year December 31
about 9:45 at night is when
Yellowstone begins to form.
So Yellowstone is very young
geologically speaking.
Again
on December 31st about three
seconds before midnight Columbus
sails for the New World.
And people well people of
our age come into being about
two tenths of a second before
midnight on December 31st.
And so again for the little
bit older aged kids they
go like ooooo then they can
say you are really really
young geologically speaking.
And when I talk in terms
of these millions of years
just keep in mind that Yellowstone
as we know it is very young
geologically speaking."
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