A hot spring in Yellowstone national park that erupts sporadically was captured on an official camera exploding in spectacular muddy plumes at the weekend.
Volcanic experts at the US Geological Survey described the eruption as simply “Kablooey!”
The tumult occurred at the Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone on Saturday morning and provided dramatic footage.
Video shared by the USGS on social media shows mud spraying up and out from the murky hot spring just before 9.23am local time in Biscuit Basin.
It lies about midway between the famous Old Faithful geyser that spurts water and steam sky high at frequent intervals and the contrastingly wide and quiet Grand Prismatic Spring, the park’s largest spring, that wells up and out showing vivid rings of color formed by heat-loving bacteria.
Other recent eruptions at lesser-known Black Diamond Pool have mostly been audible and not visible, because they happened either at night or when the nearby camera was obscured by ice.
A hydrothermal explosion at Black Diamond in July 2024 sent rocks and mud flying hundreds of feet high and damaged a boardwalk used by visitors, prompting the closure of the area.
So-called dirty eruptions reaching up to 40 feet have occurred sporadically since then.
Researchers installed a new camera and a seismic and acoustic monitoring station this summer, and they say the instruments, along with temperature sensors maintained by the Yellowstone National Park Geology Program, can better detect and characterize the eruptions. It paid off on Saturday.
“We got a nice clear view of one of these dirty eruptions under bright blue skies with the surroundings covered in snow (ah, winter in Yellowstone!),” USGS Volcanoes said on social media, noting that it was a great example of the kind of activity that has been happening at the spot over the past 19 months.
Yellowstone preserves the most extraordinary collection of hot springs, geysers, mud pots and fumaroles on Earth. More than 10,000 hydrothermal features are found within the park, over 500 of them geysers. Bison, bear, moose and and other wildlife stars inhabit the park.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
