LOWER  GEYSER  BASIN  (YELLOWSTONE  HOTSPOT)  HYDROTHERMAL  FEATURES

 

Celestine Pool (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~NW; below: looking ~WNW).

Celestine Pool is an overflowing hot spring that has occasional burst eruptions up to 4 feet high.

 


 

Silex Spring (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~ENE; below: looking ~ESE).

This hot spring has a deep turquoise color, caused by the presence of hot water having an abundance of exceedingly small particles of colloidal silica.  Silex Spring is an overflowing hot spring, sometimes heavily overflowing, and sometimes has geyser eruptions.  Observers have reported whirlpool draining events of the pool after geyser eruptions.

 

Silex Spring - geyserite (siliceous sinter) rimming the hot spring.  The orangish-brown areas have extremophile bacterial mats.  The whitish-gray borders are bacteria-free (~) geyserite.

 


 

Fountain Paint Pots (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~N; below: looking ~ESE).

Mud pots, or paint pots, are pools of thin to thick muddy material consisting of clay-sized grains of clay minerals mixed with varying amounts of water.  Rising gases result in bursting bubbles of mud at the surface.

The clay forms by chemical weathering of rhyolite lava, a common lithology in the Yellowstone Hotspot area.  When rising hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S), exsolved from subsurface magma, reaches the top of the water table, oxidation occurs and sulfuric acid forms (H2SO4).  The sulfuric acid reacts with the rhyolite, forming various clay minerals.

Mud pots in Yellowstone tend to have thin mud in boreal spring and early summer and boiling-type bubbles appear at the surface.  In boreal late summer and autumn, the mud is thick, which alters the bubble surfacing and bubble bursting behavior of rising gases.

Fountain Paint Pots have various delicate shades of pinks, grays, yellows, and orangish-browns.  The colors are from a variety of disseminated iron oxide species.

 

Fountain Paint Pots - wet thick mud at center, surrounded by ~dried mud masses.

 

Fountain Paint Pots (above & below) - wet, thin mud in main pool with boiling-type bubbles at the surface.  Notice the diapir-like burst in the upper left of the above photo.

 


 

Small spurting hot spring vent near Fountain Paint Pots (Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA) in August 2010.

 


 

Red Spouter (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~E; below: looking ~SE).

Two vents in adjacent craters here act as perpetual mud spouters or fumaroles.  This feature formed from a surface fracture formed during the 1959 Hebgen Lake Earthquake.

 


 

Leather Pool, Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (looking ~NE).  This is a quiet pool, except for some geyser eruptions immediately after the 1959 Hebgen Lake Earthquake.

 


 

Twig Geyser, Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (looking ~N).

Twig Geyser’s eruption activity ranges from relatively small splashes to 20 feet high bursts of water.

 


 

Jet Geyser (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~SE; below: looking ~S).

Jet Geyser is a multivent feature with an elongated, irregularly-mounded geyserite cone formed along a fracture in the surrounding geyserite platform.  Recorded activity here ranges from dormancy to 20 feet high geyser eruptions.  Some of Jet Geyser’s erupting vents spout subhorizontally.

 


 

Super Frying Pan (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~SE; below: looking ~SSE).

This feature consists of one main vent of irregular shape plus smaller, variably-shaped vents and enlarged fractures.  Geyser or geyser-like activity first occurred in the 1960s.  Modern eruptions are bursts and spouts up to 15 feet high.

 


 

Fountain Geyser (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (above: looking ~NNE; below: looking ~N).

Subvertical walls of whitish-gray geyserite lines the crater of Fountain Geyser.  Its moderately frequent eruptions have ranged in height from about 10 feet to about 100 feet high.  Eruptions occasionally consist of large bursting bubbles of water.

 


 

Spasm Geyser (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (looking ~NNW).

Spasm Geyser’s eruption behavior varies, with geyser columns ranging from a few feet high to about 40 feet high.  The vents have irregular to jagged outlines.  Cross-sections of the upper parts of the adjacent, somewhat irregularly-layered geyserite platform are visible, which were probably exposed as the result of a steam explosion in 1963.

 


 

Clepsydra Geyser (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (looking ~NW).

This geyser is almost always erupting from an attractive, multicolored, geyserite-lined pool and vent complex.  Splash-like eruptions can reach up to about 45 feet high.  This type of activity has been nearly constant since the 1959 Hebgen Lake Earthquake.

Clepsydra Geyser (above & below) in eruption in August 2010.

 


 

Jelly Geyser (above & below), Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (looking ~W).

Jelly Geyser infrequently erupts, although historical observations indicate that it often erupted before the 1959 Hebgen Lake Earthquake.  The moderately large crater is bordered by grayish, irregularly scalloped geyserite that is slightly overhanging in places.

The Jelly Geyser crater shown above is shadowed by eruption steam from adjacent Clepsydra Geyser.

 


 

Geyserite-permineralized lodgepole pines in the southern Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2010 (looking ~NW).

 


 

Lemon Spring, between Serendipity Springs and the Great Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~N).

Lemon Spring’s water temperature has varied.  At certain temperatures, yellowish-colored extremophile bacterial mats grow profusely around the pool, which inspired the name.

This hot spring is not a geyser, but light overflow, heavy overflow, and boiling episodes do occur.

 


 

Firehole Spring (above & below), White Creek Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~NNW).

Firehole Spring is a beautiful, fascinating, overflowing hot spring - it’s one of my favorite Yellowstone features.  This steaming, delicate blue-colored pool has a near-center vent from which light-colored, flickering and flame-like gas bubbles frequently emerge.  Only some of the gas bubbles significantly disturb the water surface with small bursting splashes.  Bursts can reach about 6 feet high.

The gas bubbles are composed principally of steam (H2O).  Upon emerging from the pool’s vent, most steam bubbles are cooled by the surrounding water and condense into liquid water, thereby not disturbing the surface much.

The yellowish-orangish-brownish areas on the northern side of Firehole Spring have extremophile bacterial mats.

 

Firehole Spring (above & below)

 


 

Surprise Pool (above & below), Great Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~NNW).

Above: This overflowing hot spring has an intense blackish-blue to blackish-green color.  Vigorous boiling occurs along portions of the pool border and sometimes near the center.  Surprise Pool does not have geyser eruptions.

Below: Surprise Pool’s drainage channel heads ~WSW and is bordered by irregularly wavy geyserite crusts.  The deep yellowish and orangish-brown colored areas have extremophile bacterial mats.

 

Surprise Pool (above & below)

 


 

White Creek Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~SW).

Geysers and hot springs occur in and along a one-third mile stretch of White Creek Valley, located to the southeast of Surprise Pool-Great Fountain Geyser area.

 


 

Great Fountain Geyser (above & below), Great Fountain Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~W).

This large, high-playing geyser has a low, extensive, fairly flat platform with irregularly concentric geyserite ridges.  The geyserite platform is about 150 feet across.  Large, ~predictable, ~1 to 2 hour-long eruptions occur once or twice or three times a day, reaching about 100 to 250 feet high.

Great Fountain Geyser (above & below) (looking ~NNW)

 

Great Fountain Geyser - the water-filled central vent has a ~14 to ~20 feet diameter.

 

Great Fountain Geyser - irregularly layered geyserite (siliceous sinter) at the outer edge of the platform.

 


 

White Dome Geyser (above & below), White Dome Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (above: looking ~N).

White Dome Geyser has an old, very large, projecting, whitish gray to pinkish-orangish cone of geyserite (siliceous sinter) that sits on top of a larger, low, paleo-hot spring geyserite mound.  Moderately frequent geyser eruptions up to 30 feet high occur here, spewed from a fairly small vent.

White Dome Geyser (above & below) (looking ~W)

 

White Dome Geyser (looking ~N)

 


 

Gemini Geyser (above & below), White Dome Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~ENE).

The very shallow pool at front-center is Gemini Geyser.  Two vents are present - the gray area in the back part of the pool has one vent and the yellowish-orange area has the other.  Gemini Geyser has slightly angled eruptions up to about 10 feet high.

 

Gemini Geyser - eastern vent (above) and western vent (below).

 


 

Pebble Geyser (above & below), White Dome Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011.

This small hot spring first erupted in the late 1960s.  Pebbles that were brushed into the pool by vehicle traffic on the adjacent roadway were ejected during its first known eruption.

Pebble Geyser eruptions are short-lived and reach 1 to 20 feet high.

 


 

Cave Spring, White Dome Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~ENE).

 


 

Pink Cone Geyser (above & below), Pink Cone Group, Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~N).

This geyser has a moderately small, subsymmetrical geyserite cone.  The pink and orange and red colors are from iron oxide (hematite, Fe2O3).  The blackish areas have been attributed to manganese oxide staining of the geyserite.

Pink Cone Geyser has ~1.5 to 2 hour-long eruptions about once a day, although this has changed in the past.  Dormancies have also occurred.  Erupting water column heights reach about 30 feet high.

When active, a slightly-expanding jet of water erupts ~vertically.  Eruptions include pauses of several seconds that involve just steam emissions before water eruption resumes.

 

Pink Cone Geyser erupting (above & below) in August 2011.  The above photo shows steam emissions during one of the seconds-long pauses in water eruption.

 


 

Artesia Geyser, Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011.

Artesia Geyser is essentially a perpetual spouter.  Every minute or so, it cycles through a <5 feet high geyser eruption to low, very minor splashing and boiling to another <5 feet high eruption.

Higher eruptions occurred in the 1970s, as did a dormancy event.  Subhorizontal geyser eruptions have sometimes occurred.

 

Artesia Geyser

 


 

Young Hopeful Geyser & Gray Bulger Geyser (above & below), Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~NNW).

Young Hopeful Geyser has a dark, water-filled pool with a crude J-shaped outline.  The present crater shape is mostly a consequence of a mid-1970s steam explosion.  Moderately small, nearly constant splashing eruptions occur in the eastern end of the pool.  Both travertine (CaCO3) and geyserite (siliceous sinter) (SiO2·nH2O) are reported to be forming at Young Hopeful Geyser.

The blackish-colored material just behind and to the right of the splashing in the above photo and two photos below has been identified as manganese oxide mineralization.

The light to dark cream-colored area behind and to the right of Young Hopeful Geyser’s pool has a small vent from which splashing occurs (see above & 1st photo below from August 2011) or noisy steam eruptions (observed in July 2012).

 

Young Hopeful Geyser & Gray Bulger Geyser, Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~WNW).

Young Hopeful Geyser is the dark-colored pool with splashing.

None of the references I have access to are sufficiently specific to allow me to confidently identify Gray Bulger Geyser.  I think that Gray Bulger Geyser is the slit-shaped,  splashing feature in the below photo and the lower front part of the above photo.

Gray Bulger Geyser

 


 

Firehole Lake (above & below), Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~NNE).

Travertine (CaCO3) has been reported along portions of the shores of this lake.

The small perpetual spouter seen in the right distance in the below photo is Artesia Geyser.

 


 

Steady Geyser (above & below), Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~NE).

This feature is reported to be the largest perpetual spouter anywhere.  It is located on the margin of Black Warrior Lake.  Steady Geyser has built up a mound composed of both geyserite (SiO2·nH2O) and travertine (CaCO3).  The pinkish gray and dark red areas have been attributed to manganese oxide staining, but I suspect the coloring agents are principally iron oxides.

 

Steady Geyser (looking ~NW)

 


 

Black Warrior Lake (above & below), Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011.

Black Warrior Lake has hot water and receives drainage from Firehole Lake.  It drains into Hot Lake via some rapids called “Hot Cascades” (see next feature below).  The splashing eruption seen above is Steady Geyser.

 


 

Hot Cascades (above & below), draining from Black Warrior Lake into Hot Lake, Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~NNE).

 


 

Hot Lake, Black Warrior Group (Firehole Lake Group), Lower Geyser Basin, Yellowstone Hotspot, northwestern Wyoming, USA in August 2011 (looking ~SW).

Hot Lake is the third of a series of hot water lakes.  Hot Lake receives water draining from Firehole Lake and Black Warrior Lake.  Water from Hot Lake discharges into Tangled Creek, which heads west and northwest and eventually drains into the Firehole River.

 


 

Info. mostly synthesized from:

 

Bryan, T.S.  2008.  The Geysers of Yellowstone, Fourth Edition.  Boulder, Colorado.  University Press of Colorado.  462 pp.

 

Fritz, W.J.  1985.  Roadside Geology of the Yellowstone Country.  Missoula, Montana.  Mountain Press Publishing Company.  149 pp.

 

Ohsawa et al.  2000.  Geothermal blue water colored by colloidal silica.  Proceedings of the World Geothermal Congress, 2000, Kyushu-Tohoku, Japan, May 28-June 10, 2000: 663-668.

 

Schreier, C.  1987.  A Field Guide to Yellowstone’s Geysers, Hot Springs and Fumaroles.  Moose, Wyoming.  Homestead Publishing.  96 pp.

 


 

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