MSU News Service
BOZEMAN – A new Yellowstone atlas has won one of the five top awards given by the Association of American Publishers.
The Atlas of Yellowstone received the PROSE Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics during an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. this February. The atlas won the Earth Sciences category and was then grouped with other award winners from the physical sciences and math. It won best book in this broad division.
The 296-page book is the first comprehensive atlas of a U.S. national park. It contains more than 500 maps, photos and charts that cover a wide range of topics.
Four themes run throughout the atlas, three of which emphasize how Yellowstone is constantly changing, the ways it is connected to a broader environment, and the interactions between humans and natural processes. These themes, in turn, support the fourth theme – the importance of Yellowstone for research, interpretation and education, and inspiring conservation and preservation efforts.
The University of Oregon, Yellowstone National Park and their partners produced the atlas. Montana State University, one of those partners, was a major sponsor of and contributor to the Atlas of Yellowstone, said senior editor W. Andrew Marcus from the University of Oregon.
Participating faculty came from MSU’s Institute on Ecosystems, the Department of Earth Sciences, the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, the Thermal Biology Institute and the Museum of the Rockies.
The university’s faculty and affiliates helped guide the content and provided draft text for topics covering history of Yellowstone science, American Indians, land use, population trends, geology, seismicity, geothermal areas, geomorphology, glaciation, fire regimes, dinosaurs and thermophiles, Marcus said.
