Thermal Effects: Yellowstone, Part 2

In my all too short stay at Yellowstone, I was only able to devote the most insufficient amount of time to its spectacular thermal features---all of these pictures were taken at the Biscuit Basin.  As I photographed them, I could think only of my sister, Rebecca and her love for the patterns made by water. Here's what happens when water, chemicals and heat come together at the earth's crust.

The Sapphire pool

The pure blue of the Sapphire Pool is due to the crystal clear purity of the water releasing its natural tendency to reflect the color blue. The other colors, rust, red, orange, yellow and green result are mineral (iron oxide or sulphur) or bacterial (cyanobacteria) forces.

The warm air is pungent with the smell of sulphur. I find I am often not offended by such smells, although I can hear complaints from my fellow visitors ringing in from all directions. I like the smell of kelp wrack on the beach, molting elephant seals, the manure of ungulates---all of these have positive associations for me. I'd take any of them over a face full of department store perfume anyday.

Sulphurous creek connects the pools

Iron oxide and sulphur mini landscape

Cauliflower Geyser

                                    

I didn't stop at Old Faithful---it was too much of a zoo for me---so I missed the most infamous of Yellowstone's thermal features. I think it will continue to be faithful without me. Unless....