Yellowstone’s New Thermal Vent May Be Easy to Spot This Summer

Yellowstone National Park is partly famous thanks to its many geysers. Most visitors know Old Faithful and the Steamboat Geyser, and now there’s a new geothermal vent getting attention. When it’s especially active, guests don’t even need to get out of their cars to see it.

According to the Associated Press, scientists first saw the column of steam in the summer of 2024. Upon closer inspection, they determined that the plume’s temperature was 171℉, and that it was relatively new based on a thin layer of gray clay surrounding it.

Scientists with the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory shared in a blog post that the new vent is located at Roadside Springs, an area in Yellowstone National Park that’s south of Mammoth Hot Springs and north of Norris Geyser Basin. It sits on a wooded hill that’s visible from the road. Though the vent has remained active, its steam output dwindled over the winter. Per the Associated Press, people should be able to view the vent when Yellowstone’s roads open to cars in April—assuming it returns to its activity levels from last summer.

Hydrothermal features are common in Yellowstone National Park—in fact, the area is home to more than half of the world’s total. This is because the national park encompasses an active supervolcano that hasn’t erupted in 640,000 years. Nonetheless, the magma chamber below the volcano heats the underground water enough to create and activate geysers, hot springs, and bubbling mud pots. And if you’re worried about Yellowstone exploding at any minute—don’t. The chances of it erupting are just one in 730,000 (0.00014 percent) per year.

If such structures are typical at Yellowstone, what makes this newly discovered one unique? Mike Poland, a scientist who heads the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, told the Associated Press that the new vent garnered so much attention because it is much more visible than others.

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