Canyon Visitor Education Center

Enter the new Canyon Visitor Education Center and the world of Yellowstone’s supervolcano—an idea that has captured the minds and imaginations of people around the world. For the first time, park visitors will see, hear, and learn how the Yellowstone volcano, its geysers and hot springs, and geologic history shape the distribution and abundance of all life found here. Explore these ideas through interactive exhibits, animations, audio-visual productions, and real-time scientific data.

The unique exhibits include: 

• A room-size relief model of Yellowstone that illuminates and narrates the park’s volcanic eruptions, lava flows, glaciers, and earthquake faults for visitors on the first floor; from the second floor view, visitors can hear tribes associated with the park interpret the park’s geology from their tribe’s perspective.
• A 9,000 pound rotating globe illustrating global volcanic hotspots.
• One of the world’s largest lava lamps illustrating how magma rises by heat convection.
• Computer-generated exhibits displaying real-time earthquake and other geologic data exactly at the same time it is being collected in the park.
• Murals and enlarged photographs showing the enormity of Yellowstone’s glaciers and their lasting effect on the landscape.
• Detailed panoramas, dioramas, and cross sections of life in a lodgepole forest and a grassland—habitats made possible by Yellowstone’s fire and ice.