Yellowstone Lake Coring Projects: Research with a History

The Yellowstone National Park ecosystem is a product of dynamic earth system processes, which have been of interest to scientists and the public since the park's discovery. Here, we outline the history of two successive generations of scientific collaboration in Yellowstone National Park. Early collaboration was spurred by the discovery of an unknown diatom species found in Yellowstone Lake. This prompted the first coring project in 1992 that described the morphological evolution of that species and the paleoenvironmental conditions during which it evolved. About twenty years later, the group was brought together again, with the addition of early career scientists, for a coring project focused on hydrothermal activity in the Yellowstone Lake basin. We discuss the ongoing research and analyses of core material, and conclude with the benefits of working in multigenerational interdisciplinary research groups.