Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
One phenomenon scientists have researched is a seasonal disturbance that often occurs
sometime between mid July and early autumn, particularly in Back Basin. For a week or
two, many features at Norris go berserk: Emerald Spring becomes cloudy, Echinus Gey-
ser turns unpredictable (even when routinely predictable), and Green Dragon Spring and
Gray Lakes turn chocolate brown and boil furiously.
During the disturbances, geoscientists have noted an increase in the amount of water
and gas discharged, increase in the turbidity of the water, large fluctuations in water tem-
peratures, and decreased chloride and increased acidity in some springs. Occasionally, a
small hydrothermal explosion creates a new thermal feature. Some geochemists now con-
sider it likely that the Norris seasonal disturbance stems from the mixing of groundwater
from two or more different underground zones having different chemical compositions.
Leaving Echinus, the walkway crosses the South Fork of Tantalus Creek for the first time
and passes near several features that have erupted as geysers for short periods in the recent
past.
Crater Spring
and
Arch Steam Vent
are to the right (north) and left (south) of the path,
respectively.
Tantalus Geyser
(formerly Decker Geyser) is out in the sinter to the north.
In the case of Tantalus Geyser, the human history is more interesting than the thermal his-
tory. In the 1960s, Mrs. Hazel Decker was so determined to see Steamboat Geyser erupt that
she spent 52 consecutive days in the area, sleeping in her car in the parking lot. Mrs. Decker
was rewarded with about 10 eruptions of Steamboat. A nearby geyser that was named for her
has been renamed Tantalus Geyser, but a small grove of trees out in the sinter is informally
called Decker Island.
Tantalus Creek,
the small creek that drains both Back Basin and Porcelain Basin, is named
for a king in Greek mythology. He was doubly condemned: to stand up to his chin in water
that retreated whenever he stooped to drink and to reach up for bunches of grapes that always
evaded his grasp. (his myth is the source of our word
tantalize.)
The creek's water level and
temperature rise and fall with basin-wide geyser eruptions.
A long stretch of the Back Basin walkway passes springs of different colors, shapes,
sizes, and levels of activity, including sometimes yellow-green, sometimes superheated
Mystic
Spring.
Just before you reach
Black Hermit's Caldron
(away from the trail's corner), you pass
another example of a geyser whose name is better than its action,
Puff 'n Stuff Geyser.
he
late Park Geologist Rick Hutchinson named it after a TV show of the early 1970s called
H.
R. Pufnstuf.
The geyser gurgles below ground and sprays out some water but has never done
much else.
Next is cavernous
Green Dragon Spring,
named for its usual color and its characteristic
action, boiling vigorously and belching steam from three funnel-shaped vents. When the
