About the Image(s)

A trip in 2023 took me to Yellowstone National Park. Here is the Midway Geiser Basin, with all it's beauty and splendor.

Midway Geyser Basin is small but spectacular.

Excelsior Geyser is a 200 x 300 foot crater that constantly discharges more than 4,000 gallons of water per minute into the Firehole River.

Grand Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone’s largest hot spring, is 200??“330 feet in diameter and more than 121 feet deep.

Hot Springs
Hot springs are the most common hydrothermal features in Yellowstone. Their plumbing has no constrictions.

Superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks, and is replaced by hotter water from below.

This circulation prevents water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption.

Hydrothermal features are also habitats in which microscopic organisms survive and thrive. They are called thermophiles: "thermo" for heat and "phile" for lover.

Although they are too small to be seen with the naked eye, trillions are grouped together and appear as masses of color. They are nourished by energy and chemical building blocks.

Colorless and yellow thermophiles grow in the hottest water.

Orange, brown, and green thermophiles grow in cooler waters.

Imagine living in near-boiling temperatures, in hydrothermal features with the alkalinity of baking soda, or in water so acidic that it can burn holes in clothing. Microorganisms in Yellowstone need these extremes to survive.

Shot with I-Phone 13 edited with Movie Studio Platinum Pro