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The Yellowstone eruptions
A hotspot is a fixed source of hot rock deep in the Earth's interior, which the plates above it move across. The hotspot track across the Snake River Plain is among the clearest evidence that the plate moves over a fixed source in the mantle, and it gives a direct measurement of the rate. The eruption 640,000 years ago laid down measurable ash as far away as Louisiana. The geysers and hot springs, which made Yellowstone the world's first national park in 1872, are driven by that same magma chamber — the park was protected for its beauty before anyone understood what it actually was.
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