In the 1960s，while studying the volcanic history of Yellowstone National Park, Bob Christiansen became puzzled about something that, oddly, had not troubled anyone before: he couldn't find the park's volcano. It had been known for a long time that Yellowstone was volcanic in nature — that's what accounted for all its hot springs and other steamy features. But Christiansen couldn't find the Yellowstone volcano anywhere.
20世纪60年代，在研究黄石国家公园的火山历史时，鲍勃·克里斯汀森对一件以前从未困扰过任何人的事情感到困惑：他找不到公园的火山。很长一段时间以来，人们都知道黄石公园是火山性质的——这就是它所有的温泉和其他蒸汽特征的原因。但克里斯汀森却找不到黄石火山。
Most of us, when we talk about volcanoes, think of the classic cone shapes of a Fuji or Kilimanjaro, which are created when erupting magma piles up. These can form remarkably quickly. In 1943, a Mexican farmer was surprised to see smoke rising from a small part of his land. In one week he was the confused owner of a cone five hundred feet high. Within two years it had topped out at almost fourteen hundred feet and was more than half a mile across. Altogether there are some ten thousand of these volcanoes on Earth，all but a few hundred of them extinct. There is, however, a second less known type of volcano that doesn't involve mountain building. These are volcanoes so explosive that they burst open in a single big crack, leaving behind a vast hole, the caldera. Yellowstone obviously was of this second type, but Christiansen couldn't find the caldera anywhere.
当我们谈论火山时，我们大多数人都会想到富士山或乞力马扎罗山的经典锥形，它们由喷发的岩浆堆积形成，过程可能非常迅速。1943年，一位墨西哥农民惊讶地看到烟雾从他的一小块土地上升起。在一个星期内，他成了一个困惑的500英尺高的圆锥体的主人。不到两年，它就达到了近1400英尺的高度，直径超过半英里。地球上总共有一万座这样的火山，除几百座外，其余都已是死火山。然而，还有第二种少有人知的火山类型，不涉及造山。这些火山由爆炸形成，以至于它们在一个大裂缝中裂开，留下一个巨大的洞，即破火山口。黄石公园显然属于第二类，但克里斯蒂安森在任何地方都找不到破火山口。
Just at this time NASA decided to test some new high-altitude cameras by taking photographs of Yellowstone. A thoughtful official passed on some of the copies to the park authorities on the assumption that they might make a nice blow-up for one of the visitors' centers. As soon as Christiansen saw the photos, he realized why he had failed to spot the caldera; almost the whole park-2.2 million acres - was caldera. The explosion had left a hole more than forty miles across - much too huge to be seen from anywhere at ground level. At some time in the past Yellowstone must have blown up with a violence far beyond the scale of anything known to humans.
就在这个时候，NASA决定通过拍摄黄石公园的照片来测试一些新的高空相机。一位深思熟虑的官员把一些复印件交给了公园管理部门，认为它们可以作为某个游客中心的装饰。克里斯琴森一看到照片，就明白了为什么没有看到破火山口，因为几乎整个公园（220万英亩）都是破火山口。爆炸留下了一个40多英里宽的大洞，如此巨大以至于从地面上的任何地方都看不见。黄石公园一定在过去的某个时候发生过爆炸，其威力远远超过了人类所知的任何规模。
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