Wonders of the National Parks: A Geology of North America

Starting one's tour of the geological sites of North America's national parks with Yellowstone; the breathtaking landscape inspires the idea of a national park; the processes that produce Yellowstone's geothermal formations, particularly its geysers.

Reading the evidence in the rocks to unearth Yellowstone's bigger story; the volcanic eruptions that create the region will one day destroy it; the glaciers that shape the terrain; the meltwater floods that carve the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

At Grand Teton National Park south of Yellowstone, an active fault lifts some of North America's oldest rocks to the summits of some of the continent's youngest mountains; exploring these glacier-sculpted peaks; the origin of the Jackson Hole.

Comparing the lessons of hotspot volcanism at Yellowstone with the different landscape at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park; Professor Cochran describes rivers of fire on the Big Island of Hawaii and suggests distinctive lava formations to visit.

How a barren volcanic landscape becomes a tropical paradise; studying the speed with which volcanic islands erode, leaving rich soil behind; watching these processes at work on the Big Island of Hawaii, at Haleakala National Park on Maui.

Touring Mount Rainier National Park and Lassen Volcanic National Park in the Pacific Northwest; they are a part of the Cascade Range of active volcanoes that include Mount Saint Helens; visiting a group of similarly cataclysmic volcanoes.

Learning how seafloor subduction raises a lofty volcano only to obliterate it in a colossal eruption that created Crater Lake in Oregon; tectonic forces upend the mountains of Olympic National Park and form the peaks at North Cascades National Park.

Exploring the vast national parks at Katmai and Lake Clark; Katmai is the site of the 20th century's largest volcanic eruption; Lake Clark is unusual among national parks for having no roads and being accessible only by boat or small plane.

The largest state with stops at two spectacular parks that are popular destinations for cruise ships: Glacier Bay and Kenai Fjords; how glaciers are formed; their historical advance and retreat in this region; comparing a glacier and a candy bar.

Surveying the Yosemite Valley; Ansel Adams and others capture its beauty in photographs; investigating the geological history of the park; the most distinctive rock type is granite.

The geology of Yosemite; charting the role of glaciers in shaping the terrain; the origin of California's famous gold deposits; the special conditions that promote the growth of giant sequoias; visiting the national parks that preserve these trees.

Tracing the earth-shaking San Andreas Fault through a series of national parks and recreation areas; visiting the Point Reyes, Golden Gate and Pinnacles in the north to the Santa Monica Mountains, Channel Islands and Joshua Tree.

The three largest national parks in the U.S., Wrangell-St. Elias, Gates of the Arctic and Denali, tell the story of the tectonic train wreck which leads to the creation of Alaska; these remote preserves encompass America's mountains.

Continental rifting causes huge blocks of land to sink between high mountain belts; Death Valley is the lowest, hottest, driest place in North America; exploring national parks and monuments in the Great Basin region.

A hike along the Appalachian Trail tells the story of a continental collision that raises mountains rivalling the Himalayas; the geology of this ancient chain from Shenandoah National Park to Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland.

Surveying some of the attractions that make the Great Smoky Mountains America's most visited national park; investigating a related geological structure; discovering why there are hot springs so far from volcanic activity.

Rivers are an important clue to the geology of a region; they offer possibilities for recreation; visiting some of America's national rivers, water trails and river parks; the Upper Missouri River Breaks and Niagara Falls.

Sand dunes are not usually pictured in a setting of alpine peaks; the scene at Great Sand Dunes National Park in the Colorado Rockies; the conditions that create sprawling dune fields; the Kobuk Valley, White Sands and Death Valley.

Dunes, salt marshes, ponds and lagoons characterize shorelines at America's coastal national parks; investigating the processes at Cape Hatteras, Cape Cod, and Assateague National Seashores, Sleeping Bear Dunes and Indiana Dunes.

Corals and other reef creatures are helping create new carbonate rock at a trio of national parks; encountering a massive reef from the past, raised to towering heights at Guadalupe Mountains National Park.

Touring America's national marine sanctuaries and monuments: they are spread over more than a dozen locations up and down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, plus the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Lakes, Hawaii, and beyond.

The rocks of coastal Maine reveal a gripping legacy of lost oceans, colliding continents, epic mountains, furious volcanoes, and massive glaciers; Acadia National Park records evidence in its granite summits and boulder-strewn shores.

Visiting Theodore Roosevelt, Badlands, and Mount Rushmore National Parks in the Dakotas; beholding the landscape that inspired Theodore Roosevelt to become an ardent conservationist; how badlands are the product of deposition, uplift, and erosion.

Descending into the Grand Canyon; recording the full sequence of strata from top to bottom; examining the 270-million-year-old limestone of the shallow sea to basement rocks that record a mountain-building saga from 1.7 billion years ago.

What it takes to carve the Grand Canyon; exploring theories on how this chasm is formed; venturing on a trip from the Colorado River's access point at Lee's Ferry, down fearsome rapids; how humans have changed the river.

Petrified Forest National Park is a colorful landscape littered with fossil trees that shade Earth's earliest dinosaurs; fossilized flora and fauna open a window on ancient ecosystems, extinct species and the history of life on Earth.

Nature's artistry is visible in the intricately eroded parks of the Colorado Plateau: Bryce Canyon, Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park; how natural arches are formed in the Arches region.

Witnessing the effects of canyon erosion on the Colorado Plateau; the deep and narrow Black Canyon of the Gunnison; The Narrows is a dramatic slot canyon in Zion National Park.

Exploring parks where geology supports the settlement of people in North America; the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings exploit natural shelter and rock seeps; surveying other cliff dwellings and pueblos in the Southwest.

Ascending the heights of the Rocky Mountains; how tectonic processes nearly a thousand miles away could possibly have raised this extensive range; the Rocky Mountain National Park, Red Rocks, the Garden of the Gods and the Maroon Bells.

Journeying to Glacier National Park; glaciers may be disappearing; the impressive glacier-sculpted terrain remains.

Investigating the multitude of geological processes on view at Big Bend National Park in Texas; signs of continental collisions, volcanic eruptions, dramatic erosion and other events; surveying the Saguaro National Park.

Visiting underground parks; exploring the hundreds of miles of mapped passages in Mammoth Cave, Wind Cave, and Carlsbad Caverns National Parks; the similarities and differences between these caves; two are carved by mildly acidic rainwater.

Florida is a limestone-dominated piece of proto-Africa that is stuck to North America; studying similar terrain at Congaree National Park and Chichen Itza in the Yucatan.

Exploring the ancient heart of North America; the Canadian Shield; Northeast Greenland National Park is the largest, most northerly national park in the world; stopping at parks on Isle Royale, Baffin Island and Ellesmere Island.

Surveying national parks; traversing North America on a grand expedition; assessing the geology of the continent; the Appalachians; the Aleutians; national parks and other protected lands tell a dramatic story.