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Find the following Yellowstone Old Faithful Buildings buildings with the index - Old Faithful Lodge, Old Faithful Inn, Columbine Dormitory, Lower Hamilton General Store, Laurel Employee Residence, Old Faithful Snow Lodge, Old Faithful Lodge Guest Cabins, Clinic, Ranger Station, Upper Gas Station, and Quadraplex Guest Cabins.
Old Faithful area
Upper Geyser Basin
South of Norris along the rim of the caldera is the Upper Geyser Basin, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the park. This complement of features includes the most famous geyser in the park, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as four other predictable large geysers. One of these large geysers in the area is Castle Geyser which is about 1400 feet northwest of Old Faithful. Castle Geyser has an interval of approximately 13 hours between major eruptions, but is unpredictable after minor eruptions. The other three predictable geysers are Grand Geyser, Daisy Geyser, and Riverside Geyser.
The hills surrounding Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin are reminders of Quaternary rhyolitic lava flows. These flows, occurring long after the catastrophic eruption of 640,000 years ago, flowed across the landscape like stiff mounds of bread dough due to their high silica content.
Blue Star Spring near Old Faithful Geyser
Evidence of glacial activity is common, and it is one of the keys that allows geysers to exist. Glacier till deposits underlie the geyser basins providing storage areas for the water used in eruptions. Many landforms, such as Porcupine Hills north of Fountain Flats, are comprised of glacial gravel and are reminders that 70,000 to 14,000 years ago, this area was buried under ice.
Signs of the forces of erosion can be seen everywhere, from runoff channels carved across the sinter in the geyser basins to the drainage created by the Firehole River. Mountain building is evident on the drive south of Old Faithful, toward Craig Pass. Here the Rocky Mountains reach a height of 8,262 feet (2518 m), dividing the country into two distinct watersheds.
Midway Geyser Basin is much smaller than the other basins found alongside the Firehole River. Despite its small size, it contains two large features, the 200 by 300 foot wide Excelsior Geyser which pours over 4,000 gallons (15,000 liter) per minute into the Firehole River. The largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the 370 foot wide and 121 feet deep Grand Prismatic Spring is also found here.
Silex Spring at Fountain Paint Pot
Further south is the Lower Geyser Basin, which has a much less concentrated set of geothermal features, including Fountain Paint Pots. Fountain Paint Pots are mud pots, that is, a hot spring that contains boiling mud instead of water. The mud is produced by a higher acidity in the water which enables the spring to dissolve surrounding minerals to create an opaque, usually grey, mud. Also found in this basin is Great Fountain, whose eruptions reach 100 to 200 feet in the air, while waves of water cascade down its sinter terraces.
Source: Wikipedia
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