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Great Fountain Geyser is a is a geyser in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park in in Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. state of Wyoming. The geyser is located along the Firehole Lake Drive.
Great Fountain is the only geyser outside of the Upper Geyser Basin whose eruptions are predicted by the Park Service. Great Fountain is a particularly large and classical example of a fountain-type geyser, erupting out of a natural pool. Fountain-type geysers differ from cone-type geysers, which erupt out of a built up conical structure of geyserite. Great Fountain is surrounded by a large and graceful series of pools formed from terraced sinter.
Economic Geyser is believed to be named for its behavior during its active days. It is reported that most of the water ejected drained back into the vent after the eruption, thus making the geyser
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[edit] Geyser Basins
[edit] Norris area
Norris Geyser Basin is the hottest geyser basin in the park
[edit] Old Faithful area
The west-central region of the park contains many of Yellowstone's most famous and most accessible geothermal features. Geographically, this area of the park contains three major geothermal regions, named the Upper, Middle, and Lower Geyser basins. To highlight these, the Park Service has designated a number of named points of interest and provided these points of interest with a variety of side roads, parking lots, turnouts, boardwalks, trails, and descriptive brochures.
[edit] Upper Geyser Basin
South of Norris along the rim of the caldera is the Upper Geyser Basin, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the park. This complement of features includes the most famous geyser in the park, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as four other predictable large geysers. One of these large geysers in the area is Castle Geyser which is about 1400 feet northwest of Old Faithful. Castle Geyser has an interval of approximately 13 hours between major eruptions, but is unpredictable after minor eruptions. The other three predictable geysers are Grand Geyser, Daisy Geyser, and Riverside Geyser.
The hills surrounding Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin are reminders of Quaternary rhyolitic lava flows. These flows, occurring long after the catastrophic eruption of 640,000 years ago, flowed across the landscape like stiff mounds of bread dough due to their high silica content.
Evidence of glacial activity is common, and it is one of the keys that allows geysers to exist. Glacier till deposits underlie the geyser basins providing storage areas for the water used in eruptions. Many landforms, such as Porcupine Hills north of Fountain Flats, are comprised of glacial gravel and are reminders that 70,000 to 14,000 years ago, this area was buried under ice.[1]
Signs of the forces of erosion can be seen everywhere, from runoff channels carved across the sinter in the geyser basins to the drainage created by the Firehole River. Mountain building is evident on the drive south of Old Faithful, toward Craig Pass. Here the Rocky Mountains reach a height of 8,262 feet (2518 m), dividing the country into two distinct watersheds.[2]
[edit] Geyser Hill
[edit] Biscuit Basin
[edit] Midway Geyser Basin
Midway Geyser Basin is much smaller than the other basins found alongside the Firehole River. Despite its small size, it contains two large features, the 200 by 300 foot wide Excelsior Geyser which pours over 4,000 gallons (15,000 liter) per minute into the Firehole River. The largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the 370 foot wide and 121 feet deep Grand Prismatic Spring is also found here.[3]
[edit] Lower Geyser Basin
Further south is the Lower Geyser Basin, which has a much less concentrated set of geothermal features, spread over a larger area. The Park Service has created a number of points of interest in the Lower Basin, making many features particularly accessible to different modes of travel.
[edit] Fountain Paint Pots
The Fountain Paint Pots area offers most typical geothermal features accessible to tour by a short walk. The namesake Fountain Paint Pots are mud pots, that is, a hot spring that contains boiling mud instead of water. The mud is produced by a higher acidity in the water which enables the spring to dissolve surrounding minerals to create an opaque, usually grey, mud. Other popular features include Red Spouter, Clepsydra Geyser, Celestine Pool, Silex Spring, Jet Geyser, and Fountain Geyser.
[edit] Firehole Lake Drive
The Firehole Lake Drive offers a "drive-through" tour of geothermal features. A one-way side road passes close enough to most features that they can be seen and heard without getting out of the car. The most famous feature in this area is Great Fountain Geyser, whose eruptions reach 100 to 200 feet in the air, while waves of water cascade down its sinter terraces.[3] Great Fountain is the only geyser outside of the Upper Geyser Basin whose eruptions are predicted by the Park Service. Other features include the namesake Firehole Lake.
[edit] Fountain Flat Drive
The Fountain Flat Drive offers geothermal features accessible via a short hike or bike on trails.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Geyser Observation and Study Association - Grand Group. Retrieved on August 25, 2006.
