59 Fun Facts About Geysers

The English word 'geyser' comes from the name of one Icelandic hot spring and means what?

The word entered English in the late 18th century, borrowed from Geysir, which first erupted in the 14th century.

The Great Geysir, which gave its name to every geyser on Earth, is in which country?

It sits in the Haukadalur valley on the slopes of the Laugarfjall lava dome, about 50 metres from its livelier neighbour Strokkur.

Roughly what share of the world's geysers are in Yellowstone National Park?

They are spread across nine geyser basins alongside thousands of hot springs.

Yellowstone contains approximately how many geysers?

Most of them are small, erupting to only a foot or two; the famous giants are the exception.

What is the world's tallest active geyser?

Its major eruptions can throw water more than 300 feet into the air, though its timetable is erratic.

The world's tallest active geyser sits in which Yellowstone basin?

It has two vents about 20 feet apart; the north vent produces the tallest columns.

The tallest active geyser on Earth fell silent in 1911 and did not erupt again until which year?

Its 2018 active phase produced several eruptions lasting more than an hour.

Old Faithful was named in 1870 by which expedition?

It was the first geyser in the park to receive a name; the party entered the Upper Geyser Basin on 18 September 1870.

On average, how long is the gap between Old Faithful's eruptions?

The interval ranges from as short as 35 minutes to as long as 120 minutes.

What is the average height of an Old Faithful eruption?

Each eruption throws 3,700 to 8,400 US gallons of boiling water and lasts one and a half to five minutes.

More than how many Old Faithful eruptions have been recorded?

Harry Woodward first described a mathematical relationship between eruption duration and interval in 1938.

Old Faithful erupts in steady jets from a mound of sinter, making it an example of which type of geyser?

The other type erupts from a pool of water in a series of intense, sometimes violent bursts.

What is the tallest predictable geyser on Earth?

Its fountain reaches as much as 200 feet and lasts 9 to 12 minutes; it was named by Ferdinand Hayden in 1871.

Geyserite, the deposit that coats geysers, is a form of what?

Hot water dissolves it from rocks such as rhyolite; as the water cools it drops out as opal, which slowly anneals into quartz.

The heat that drives a geyser comes from what?

Geysers are almost always found in areas of recent volcanic activity.

What feature of a geyser's underground plumbing sets it apart from an ordinary hot spring?

Cooler water above presses down on hotter water beneath like the lid of a pressure cooker, letting the water superheat.

Which heat-loving bacterium, first found in geysers, became the most important thermophile for biotech?

Thermophiles prefer 50 to 70 °C, and hyperthermophiles grow best at 80 to 110 °C.

The world's second-largest geyser field, the Valley of Geysers, is on which Russian peninsula?

The six-kilometre basin holds roughly ninety geysers and is part of the Kronotsky Nature Reserve.

The Valley of Geysers was discovered by local scientist Tatyana Ustinova in which year?

From the 1980s the Soviet Union promoted it as one of the tourist magnets of the Russian Far East.

In June 2007 a massive mudflow inundated how much of the Valley of Geysers?

The slide happened while the documentary Wild Russia was filming, and the programme includes before-and-after footage.

What is the only feasible way for visitors to reach the Valley of Geysers?

About 3,000 tourists a year made the trip before the 2007 disaster.

El Tatio, the largest geyser field in the Southern Hemisphere, is in the Andes of which country?

It sits at 4,320 metres above sea level and ranks third in the world by size.

The word 'tatio' comes from which nearly extinct language?

Known meanings include 'oven' and 'to appear', and it has also been translated as 'grandfather', whose tears form the geysers.

How high did eruptions of Waimangu, the largest geyser ever known, reach in the early 1900s?

Its plumbing was apparently created by a huge volcanic eruption in 1886, and it briefly excited worldwide interest.

The name Waimangu, given by Māori, means what?

The water it threw up was black with rocks and mud from the surrounding terrain.

Waimangu stopped erupting in November 1904 after a landslide changed the water table of which lake?

Its eruptions had grown shorter and weaker for several weeks before ceasing entirely.

One of four sightseers killed at Waimangu in 1903 was an international in which sport?

Joe Warbrick, David McNaughton and sisters Ruby and Catherine Nicholls were scalded and swept away in a sudden eruption.

Strokkur, the reliable geyser in the Haukadalur valley, has a name meaning what?

It usually reaches 15 to 20 metres, occasionally 40; in 1815 it was estimated at 60.

How often does Strokkur typically erupt?

That regularity makes it one of the very few natural geysers tourists can count on seeing.

Strokkur has erupted regularly since 1963, when locals did what on the advice of the Geysir Committee?

Its neighbour Geysir, by contrast, spends most of its time dormant.

In 1845 the Great Geysir was recorded reaching what height?

Seismic activity in 2000 revived it, and for two days it reached 122 metres.

In dormant periods, eruptions of the Great Geysir were induced on special occasions by adding what?

Environmental concerns meant the practice was seldom used in the 1990s.

What tends to revive or create the geysers of Haukadalur?

The oldest definitive account of the hot springs there dates to 1294, when quakes reshaped the landscape.

Pōhutu, the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere, is in the Whakarewarewa valley of which country?

Closing nearby geothermal heating bores in the late 1980s made it markedly livelier.

Pōhutu can erupt up to how many times a day?

Its jets reach up to 30 metres.

Two large geyser fields in Nevada, including Beowawe, were destroyed by the building of what?

Elsewhere, many geysers have been killed simply by people throwing debris into them.

The Wairakei geyser field in the Taupō Volcanic Zone was lost to a power station in which year?

Many of the zone's geysers have been destroyed by humans in the last century, others by natural means.

Fly Geyser in Nevada was created by accident in 1916 when a well was drilled in search of what?

Near-boiling water came up instead, the well was abandoned, and a mineral mound built up around it.

Which organisation bought Fly Ranch, including its multicoloured geyser, in 2016?

The $6.5 million purchase covered 3,800 acres; limited public access began in May 2018.

Fly Geyser's vivid green and red colours come from what?

Bacteria and archaea that thrive in hot, wet conditions coat the rocks.

The Andernach Geyser on the Rhine, the world's tallest cold-water geyser, is driven by which gas?

A 343-metre borehole drilled in 1903 to extract the gas for mineral water hit a pressurised aquifer, and it leapt 40 metres on the first try.

How high does the Andernach cold-water geyser reach?

It became a tourist attraction in 2006 as part of the Vulkanland Eifel geopark.

The Big Mine Run Geyser in Ashland, Pennsylvania, gets its heat from what?

It erupts from an abandoned mine vent, warmed by the Centralia fire that has smouldered underground for decades.

More than 100 water-vapour jets have been found near the south pole of Enceladus, a moon of which planet?

They are fed by a global subsurface ocean beneath the ice.

Which spacecraft discovered the plumes of Enceladus during flybys that began in 2005?

Some of the vapour falls back as snow that is now hundreds of metres thick.

The escaping plumes of Enceladus supply most of the material for what?

NASA scientists say the plumes are similar in composition to comets.

Eruptions of which substance have been observed on Neptune's moon Triton?

They may be driven by solar heating through a solid-state greenhouse effect rather than internal heat.

Which Yellowstone geyser has a small 'Indicator' neighbour that often erupts before it?

Its eruptions last about five minutes and reach 200 feet; the 1870 expedition measured 219 feet by triangulation.

Riverside Geyser shoots a 75-foot arch, sometimes with a rainbow, over which Yellowstone waterway?

Like Old Faithful it is highly predictable because no other geysers nearby disturb its plumbing.

A large Upper Geyser Basin geyser was named in 1870 because its crenellated sinter mound resembled what?

Its shape keeps changing as each eruption adds another layer of mineral.

Eruptions of the world's tallest predictable geyser are heralded by which neighbour spouting hours in advance?

The big one usually starts within a minute or two of one of these bursts, and Vent Geyser follows shortly after.

In which year did Yellowstone become the world's first national park?

President Ulysses S. Grant signed the act on 1 March; painter George Catlin had floated the national-park idea back in 1833.

When 19th-century soldiers used Old Faithful as a laundry, which fabric came out torn to shreds?

General Sheridan's men found in 1882 that linen and cotton garments placed in the crater were ejected clean and undamaged.

A vent that emits steam and volcanic gases but no liquid or solid material is called what?

They mark the late stages of volcanic activity but can also precede an eruption, so they are used for prediction.

Since the 1920s, hot water from Icelandic geysers has been piped to do what?

Homes have been heated with the same steam and water since 1943.

Which Yellowstone giant, once capable of 300-foot eruptions, has behaved as a hot spring since 1985?

Semi-Centennial's single eruption of that height was reported in 1922 and it has been dormant since.

How many geyser basins does Yellowstone National Park contain?

Between them they hold roughly half of all the geysers on Earth, plus thousands of hot springs.

Above what temperature can no known eukaryote survive, leaving geysers to thermophilic prokaryotes?

In the 1960s scientists thought nothing could live above about 73 °C, the limit for cyanobacteria; heat-loving bacteria proved them wrong.

A hot spring that spouts constantly without pausing to recharge is called what, and is not a true geyser?

True geysers must be periodic; the pause lets the underground plumbing refill and superheat.