Hydrothermal Vents in Yellowstone Lake: Chemical Fluxes, Siliceous Deposits, and Collapse Structures

The geochemistry of Yellowstone Lake is strongly influenced by sublacustrine hydrothermal vent activity. The hydrothermal source fluid is identified using Cl and dD data on water column and sublacustrine hydrothermal vent fluid samples. Silica-rich hydrothermal deposits occur on the lake bottom near active and presently inactive hydrothermal vents. Pipe- and flange-like deposits contain cemented and recrystallized diatoms and represent pathways for hydrothermal fluid migration. Another major type of hydrothermal deposit comprises hard, porous siliceous spires up to 7 m tall that occur in 15 m of water in Bridge Bay. Bridge Bay spires are hydrothermal silica deposits formed in place by growth of chimney-like features from lake-bottom hydrothermal vents. The Cl concentrations indicate that Yellowstone Lake water is about 1 percent hydrothermal source fluid and 99 percent inflowing stream water and that the flux is about 10 percent of the total hydrothermal water flux in Yellowstone National Park. With recent swath-sonar mapping studies that show numerous new hydrothermal features, Yellowstone Lake should now be considered one of the most significant hydrothermal basins in the Park. Many lake-bottom hydrothermal vents occur in small depressions that are clearly imaged on multibeam sonar, some of which are interpreted as collapse structures based on seismic reflection data. Sediments collected from such vents show chemical evidence of leaching of 60-70 wt. percent SiO2, which may result in volume reductions up to 80 percent and provides a mechanism for vent structure formation.