Exit78 Photo of the Day #40
The thermal features of Yellowstone are fascinating and deadly.
Black Pool, West Thumb Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, August 4, 2010 (Pentax K10D)
Black Pool (Wikipedia) is a hot spring – temperature 72.9 °C (163.2 °F) – in the West Thumb Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in the United States.
The pool was cool enough up until 1991 for dark orange-brown cyanobacteria to grow throughout the pool. When combined with the blue of the water, the pool appeared to be an exceptionally dark green to almost black, hence the name.
An exchange of function took place in 1991, shifting thermal energy to Black Pool and nearby Abyss Pool, causing them to heat up. Black Pool’s temperature became hot enough to kill all the cyanobacteria in the pool, turning the pool a rich teal blue color. The pool also had frequent boiling eruptions on August 15, 1991, doming the water to 3 feet and causing heavy runoff. Black Pool remains extremely hot, and is now one of Yellowstone’s most beautiful and intensely blue pools. The name of the pool remains “Black Pool.”
Series notes:
- The photos in this series are (usually) randomly selected from a batch of photos specifically “curated” for Exit78 Photo of the Day.
- Each photo in this series is an “original work” – a copyright term – of Michael Goad.
Comments on this entry are closed.
Hi Mike – amazing place … I’d love to see it – one day! Fascinating geologically too – cheers Hilary
Hilary recently posted…Theme Reveal … Aspects of a British ‘girl’ in Canada …
Yes, it certainly is. We keep going back, usually in the fall, outside of the heaviest visitation period.
Mike recently posted…Chapel on a Rock