Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Skip to content

Specific conductance data for selected rivers and creeks in Yellowstone National Park, beginning in 2010

Metadata Updated: July 6, 2024

Monitoring the chloride (Cl) flux in the major rivers draining Yellowstone National Park (YNP) provides a holistic view of the thermal output from the underlying magma reservoir, and abrupt fluctuations in the Cl flux may signify changes in hydrothermal activity. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Park Service (NPS) have collaborated on Cl flux monitoring of the major rivers since the 1970s. In the past, researchers collected water samples from the major rivers in YNP, but funding restrictions, winter conditions, and the great distances between sites limited the number of samples collected annually. Beginning in 2010, specific conductance, which is relatively easy to measure and can be automated, has been used as a proxy for Cl. The use of specific conductance probes at the various monitoring sites enables a more consistent estimation of Cl flux. Consistent monitoring is useful to identify changes in river chemistry due to geyser eruptions, rain events, or changes in thermal inputs caused by earthquakes or other natural events. The use of specific conductance as a proxy for Cl requires quantification of the relationship between specific conductance, Cl, and other geothermal solutes and the relationship needs to be periodically verified. This data release contains specific conductance measurements (every 15 minutes) and water chemistry data from monitoring sites along the Madison River, Firehole River, Gibbon River, Snake River, Gardner River, Fall River, Yellowstone River, and Tantalus Creek. For several sites, there are periods of time when specific conductance is not reported because the data was likely unreliable due to failure or fouling of the specific conductance probe. There are also specific conductance and discharge data available from the USGS National Water Information System (USGS NWIS, https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/rt). The following list details the sites included in this data release and the National Water Information System site identification numbers. Yellowstone River near Corwin Springs, 06191500; Gardner River near Mammoth, 06191000; Firehole River near West Yellowstone, 06036905; Firehole River at Old Faithful, 06036805; Fall River near Squirrel, Idaho, 13046995; Gibbon River at Madison Junction, 06037100; Madison River near West Yellowstone, 06040000; Snake River near Flagg Ranch WY, 13010065; and Tantalus Creek at Norris Junction, 06036940. First posted - January 28, 2019 (available from author) Revised - May 6, 2020 (version 2.0) NOTE: While previous versions are available from the author, all the records in previous versions can be found in version 2.0.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 6, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/f5e4c535061100dba5e264c88054f4af
Identifier USGS:5e860936e4b01d50927fa6dd
Data Last Modified 20200820
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://datainventory.doi.gov/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 7c05d75e-4ad1-4fdb-bbb4-fa37ff4a0730
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -111.5222,44.0244,-109.82,45.182
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash fd423e9550bae4dd923c31178a8e8c7853e4ce8f5ec62bf99795e111238e829b
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -111.5222, 44.0244, -111.5222, 45.182, -109.82, 45.182, -109.82, 44.0244, -111.5222, 44.0244}

Didn't find what you're looking for? Suggest a dataset here.