Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
About Yellowstone's Geysers
The number of hot springs in the park has been estimated to be around 10,000. Geysers
known to have erupted or erupting now number more than 1,200. No one knows the exact
numbers. However, the Y.N.P. Spatial Analysis Center is now assembling a baseline in-
ventory of geothermal features. Since 2006 the Thermal Biology Institute of Montana State
University at Bozeman has been using this inventory to provide an online data set and to
coordinate the efforts of thermal researchers. Browse the geothermal features database at
Some people are not enthralled by geyser basins. You might agree with Owen Wister,
author of
The Virginian,
who visited in 1887: “I do not like them or their neighborhood.
The air has drafts of stenches through it sometimes like sulphur, sometimes like a stale
marsh. The ground is drilled with hissing puddles and sounds hollow as you walk, and all
healthy plants and grass keep at a prudent distance….”
Others of us are more like survey leader Hayden, who, according to Harry J. Norton's
1873 guidebook, “cannot compose himself in presence of a geyser in eruption; but, losing
recollection of the material world for the time, rubs his hands, shouts, and dances around
the object of his admiration in a paroxysm of gleeful excitement.”
To learn more about Yellowstone's geysers, the best guide is
The Geysers of Yellowstone
(2008), by geologist and former ranger T. Scott Bryan. Another major source for the author
has been the bimonthly newsletter of the Geyser Observation and Study Association (see
the Travel Tips for contact information).
(1.25)
White Dome Geyser
has a 20-foot-high cone atop a 12-foot-high mound (6 m atop 3.6
m), both built up from the deposit of sinter or geyserite. To build such a mound, a hot spring
or splashing geyser must have deposited sinter here steadily for centuries before the present
feature built the cone. White Dome is a
cone-type geyser;
erupting its steady column of water
from a narrow vent in the cone. Much of the actual cone is not white, but is stained pink from
a manganese compound. White Dome's unpredictable eruptions (in recent years about every
15 to 45 minutes) go as high as 30 feet (9 m).
(1.3) The jumble of interlaced channels of hot water coming from the right is aptly named
Tangled Creek.
(1.65)
Pink Cone
is very close to the road. Its eruptions, about once daily, last up to two
hours, as high as 30 feet (9 m). It was rarely seen erupting until 1937.
In this area are a few other small geysers, including
Pink Geyser,
located back from the
road near the trees, erupting 15-20 feet (5-6 m) every two to seven hours. Old Bath Lake is
