The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is the largest hot spring in the United States, and the third largest in the world, after Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand and Boiling Lake in Dominica. It is located in the Midway Geyser Basin. (Wikipedia)
While the Old Faithful geyser may be more famous, the Grand Prismatic Hot Spring is the most photographed thermal feature in Yellowstone. It has unique colors combined with its own steam clouds over a large area.
What Makes the Grand Prismatic so Grand?
Deeper than a 10-Story
Building
Extremely hot water travels 121 feet from a crack in the Earth to reach the
surface of the spring.
Football Field on Steroids
The third largest spring in the world, the Grand Prismatic is bigger than a football field at 370 feet in diameter. A gridiron is 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.
Rainbow of Colors
The hot spring has bright bands of orange, yellow, and green ring the deep blue
waters in the spring. The multicolored layers get their hues from different
species of thermophile (heat-loving) bacteria living in the progressively
cooler water around the spring. And the deep blue center? That’s because water
scatters the blue wavelengths of light more than others, reflecting blues back
to our eyes.
A Living Thermometer
What living thing in Yellowstone has helped investigators solve crimes and NASA search for extraterrestrial life on seemingly inhospitable planets? Heat-loving microbes living in the Yellowstone’s thermal pools. In 1968, researcher Thomas Brock discovered a microbe living in one of Yellowstone’s extremely hot springs. In the years since, research on Yellowstone’s microbes has led to major medical and scientific advances, including the sequencing of the entire human genome. Check out yellowstonepark.com for more information and images. https://www.yellowstonepark.com/things-to-do/grand-prismatic-midway-geyser-basin
Below is a neat YouTube video that provides an elevated view of the spring.
The Beauty of Our World Without Words
by Milosh Kitchovitch
Blessings along the Way!
Ron
I’ve read and heard so much about Grand Prismatic Spring. Wonderful captures, Ron. Looked like that hike was worth the view. I like your description of it geographically as a football field on steroids. This is some magnificent wonder of the world. Not sure if I’ll ever make the trek there, but so lovely to see you take a trip there and share it with us 🙂
a fabulous landscape, really, I’m stunned in front of so much beauty to thousands and thousands of kilometers from my home
Gorgeous. Thanks for sharing, Ron.
I miss your wonderful post and the photographs of your trips .. I hope you are well, Ron 🙂 <3
An extraordinary, endlessly fascinating place. Well done.
Wow, what a wonderous place. I’ve never been, but hope to one day. Thanks Ron 🙂
Great post
hi, are you out of the way of the coming storms??
How cool. Must get to Yellowstone one of these days!
Such amazing pictures! Don’t know if I can ever go there, so your pictures and descriptions is a virtual tour for me 🙂
Thank you. Glad you can see through my lens. 🙂
Absolutely fascinating – and astonishing photos. I’d love to visit Yellowstone someday.
Thanks so much. Wonderful area. 🙂
God has blessed you with an eye for beauty, and the picturesque view you show in each frame are breathtaking. Thank you.
I’ll be adding this trip on my bucket list of things to see 🙂
Many blessings on future travels and equal beauty.
Thank you so much. You’re very kind. I love to look at natural beauty like this and delight in sharing with others. It’s a wonderful place. 🙂
And it shows in every picture. Most welcome 🙂
I too enjoy God’s beauty. Shalom.
Thank you. 🙂
I had never heard of this spring before. Looks awesome! Thanks for sharing.
It’s fantastic and a wonder for sure. Thank you! 🙂
I can see why it’s the most photographed…it’s stunning! Your post is probably the closest I will get to seeing it. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙂
It is a stunning place. Glad you can visit through my lens. Thank you. 🙂
Beautiful, nature always takes care to surprise us👏👏👏😃
I have a couple of questions about the numbers. How do you measure length & width using diameter, which is used for round objects? And, unless you include end zones, which are 20 yards deep, a football field is 100 yards long. Rarely do you hear of anything including the end zone. Even if a kickoff return is caught in the end zone and run back to the other team’s end zone, it is a 100 yard return, no matter what the announcers say.
Hi Ray. Intriguing thought. Math is not my strong trait. That is the information from Yellowstone National Park. From what I can gather from another website the field has a uniform width of 53 1/3 yards (160 feet). If you calculate the entire area of a football field, including the end zones, it works out to 57,600 square feet (360 x 160). One acre equals 43,560 square feet, so a football field is about 1.32 acres in size. I’m not sure how the diameter was calculated in comparison to a rectangle. 🙂
You don’t have to get that complicated. The playing field is 100 yards long. The end zones are 20 yards deep. The width isn’t relevant in this case. That makes the field 300 + 60 + 60 = 420 feet.
Thanks Ray. 🙂