Call it Young Faithless: a spectacular hydrothermal explosion, caught on camera in Yellowstone National Park yesterday, sent hot water and mud blasting from a thermal pool.
There were no reports of injuries, but fencing was torn apart and the Biscuit Basin thermal area boardwalk covered in debris.
NPR reports that such explosions are rare, with examples recorded in 1989 and 2009, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. This one, alarming as it was, was a "small one." A one-in-700-years event could shoot a mile high and leave a crater a mile wide.
In hydrothermal systems such as those in Yellowstone, the water often can be very close to the boiling point, says Marianne Karplus, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso who has studied geysers at Yellowstone. When there's a drop in pressure underground, it "can cause basically the liquid water to flash into steam," she says. The steam takes up more space than the liquid — an expansion. "And when that happens, it can cause an explosion."
Here's video from Vlada March on Facebook.
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