July 10, 2012 • 26 mins
The spectacular eruptions of steam and water we call geysers are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, the result of thousands of years of specific natural conditions and physical processes. Learn the Stuff You Should Know about geysers in this episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot com bloom and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
(00:22):
and uh, this is stuff you should know. Yeah, just
a couple of regular guys are sitting around. Check. That
was good. I know. I genuinely didn't think you were
going to say Geyser's really a little This was a
pretty cool article. I thought I knew a lot about Geyser's,
(00:44):
but I did not know exactly what was going on there. Yeah.
In fact, I was wrong on a couple of key points.
Oh really, yes, which I will not point out. Oh
come on, well, I thought they'd split out lemonade first
of all. Uh, and I thought that was a little
guy on there doing it. Oh got lepers Yeah, that's
what everybody thinks. I was wrong on both of those points.
(01:06):
Do we have a guyser myth sound effect? I don't
think so. Um does this count as weather? Now? This
is earth science, biogeochemical processes. Okay, I just know you're
trying to be beef up our weather. H this is
not weather. It's not weather, although it does begin with weather. Yeah,
I mean when something precipitates, that's weather, and precipitation precipitates
(01:29):
the explosion of a geyser. That's right. Uh, Chuck, I
have no guyser introduction. Man, you can't blame me. Though,
Like I looked, and there is really not a lot
going on on guysers. I thought you might tell the
story about the people in nineteen three years that's going
to but I didn't want to just usurp it. Okay,
but let's do that though, since you brought it up,
(01:50):
because I mean I thought about that, I was like,
whoa hang back, Josh hanging back? Well, apparently guysers can
kill you. Um. And you know when you see something
like old Faith will go off. That's why you're three
ft away watching it. Yeah, you know you're not gonna
be on top of the thing. But apparently nineteen three
in New Zealand, which is allowsy with geyser's um, some
(02:10):
tourists visiting there got caught in a jet at Uh
why man, why Mangu Valley nice? And uh? It killed
all four people and carried them more than a mile away. Yes,
that is sad, and after after we explain how geysers work,
I think that will well we should mention that again
(02:30):
because once I understood how guysers worked and I read that,
I was like, those people met a terrible, terrible demise,
like they that was terrible way to go. Yeah, I mean,
it's tantamount to getting thrown into a volcano or caught
in dropping into the cracks of an earthquake, and they're
all kind of related, as it turns out, or being
(02:51):
bludgeoned to death, which is not related. No, but it's
pretty bad way to go to geothermal properties. So um chuck. Geysers,
as I learned from reading this article on how stuff
works dot com um our beloved site um, are actually
kind of fragile and there's not that many this this articles,
(03:11):
there's a thousand guysers roughly in in the world, and
um I read elsewhere that there's only about fifty guyser
fields on the planet and about two thirds of those
have five or fewer guysers, which makes yellow Stone a
pretty substantial repository of geyser and guys are related activity.
(03:33):
Because when you're talking guys are you you don't ever
just talk guys, or you're also talking um fumer roles.
You're talking hot springs, mud pots, steam vents, and all
of them are based around the same thing, which is
there's some sort of geo thermal activity that's relatively close
to the Earth's surface, right, um. And there's three components
(03:58):
to a geyser um and they are water supply, plumbing system,
and heat source. Yeah. And I'm gonna argue with forth
later on later though, I have to wait. I'm gonna
call it. We'll just go ahead and say what it is,
which is a remoteness, all right, and then we'll we'll
circle back because detached from its family, it comes very remote.
(04:22):
So a water supply, let's start there, because if you
ain't got water, you ain't got no geyser. Yeah. And
I saw in this article that um rivers can often
um form the water supply. I didn't. I didn't see
that elsewhere. For the most part, from what I from
what I can gather is that the water supply is
(04:43):
um precipitation, rain and snow melt percolating through the Earth's
crust over five thousand or so years, and then it
trickles down to the point where it comes in contact with,
like we said, relatively shallow geo thermal activity, usually very
very volcano volcano or volcanic activity, or very very old
(05:04):
like on in the throes of death volcanic activity. Yeah. Um,
And it can be anything from magma to um cool magma.
But it's very hot rock and it's close enough to
the surface that this water doesn't evaporate, it starts to
trickle back up. Yeah. And when do you stay close?
Three miles down it seems like a long way down,
(05:25):
but if you're talking the planet Earth, it's nothing. That's
pretty close. If you're talking magma, it's pretty close. We're
talking tectonic plates, it's pretty close. It's closer than you
want it to be. Pal, it's a go ahead, okay.
Number two the plumbing system, right, very important. Um. The
plumbing system is a series of fissures that run miles
(05:48):
beneath the surface. And one important aspect of these fissures
is they're basically sealed shut with silica from rhyolite. It's
volcanic rock. Um. And like these minerals have sealed this
rock shut, right, So like really important part of it,
that water that's percolating down. When it heats up and
starts to travel back up, it takes that silica that
(06:10):
riolite with it and then it just kind of acts
as a ceiling along these pipes. Over five hundred thousand years,
however long it takes for it to go back up,
it's it's ceiling and it's making it water tight. Well yeah,
and I imagine I didn't read this, but I imagine
that this kind of activity happens elsewhere on the planet,
but it's not sealed up, so it just disperses, right, Yeah,
(06:32):
Because one of the key ingredients of a geyser is pressure,
high pressure, that's right. And to get that pressure in
these pipes, you have to have rylelite coated sealed pipes.
That's right. Okay, So there's the plumbing system and it
can the plumbing system barries. All guysers are different. Sometimes
it's just like a huge, long vertical chaft. Sometimes it
binds and turns and winds around. Okay, So this is
(06:55):
this is something that actually differentiates guys are from a
hot spring. So a hot spring is just like a
one like a long vertical shaft coming from hot water
um up to the top. But there's no obstruction. What
makes the guys or a geyser is the fact that
there's an obstruction in the plumbing right where the hot
spring water can just move freely up and down. There's
(07:15):
there's just free exchange and you soak around in it
like a big lazy wall rush, but there's no pressure
with the guys are there's some sort of obstruction where
either say, the water on its way back up and
there's this wide pool that bottlenecks at the top. So
now you have pressure. There's a bunch of different pipes
feeding into one pipe and they all connect to the
(07:36):
same place another bottleneck or this this pipe of water
is so wide and so deep that the pressure from
the water above the water at the bottom is so
tremendous that for all intensive purposes it creates a bottleneck
just strictly out of pressure without an actual obstruction. Yeah,
(07:56):
just the weight of the water itself is so great.
So we have a water supply and a plumbing um
system that is sealed with rhyolite which makes it water
tight and pressurized, and then some sort of means for
pressure to build. Yeah, and uh, I guess we can
go ahead and liking it to a pressure cooker. Now,
so you understand what we're talking about. If you've ever
(08:16):
cooked with a pressure cooker at home, or if you've
ever eaten it Chick fil A and eating their delicious
pressure fried chicken, is that how they do it? Oh? Yeah,
pressure fried? So that's whether so juicy. Um, So water
is standard water is just gonna boil it like a
hundred degrees celsius French water. Um. If you're if you're
(08:39):
cooking with a pressure cooker, which means you know, the
litt a sealed shut it lets out some steam or
else it would explode obviously, Um, it will actually take
a lot more energy to boil and bubble up, which
means more heat. And so you can actually cooking a
pressure cooker at like twenty five degrees right, because it's
just substantial for under a pressure. It takes a lot
(09:01):
more for what it was boiling water. But it's like
air bubbles forming and rising to the top. When the
pressure is too great, it can't boil. So the boiling
point rises, right, Well, it boils, but it won't it
can't evaporate. Well, no, it can't. It can't form the
bubbles that carry to the top. So it can't actually boil.
So it's just sitting there in this high pressure environment
at high higher than boiling point temperatures and the same
(09:25):
things going on in the guyser. Right, You've got the obstruction,
you've got this heated water, and you have a tremendous
amount of pressure because again we're talking about miles deep
um and there's that's quite a bit of pressure at
the bottom the water at the bottom. It's getting hotter
and hotter and hotter. Yeah, like, um, I mean, I
(09:47):
guess it depends. But for guys are to form and start,
they think the oldest one is between five thousand and
forty years old. So yeah, so it takes a little
while because you know, the plumbing has to has to
steal up in every thing. But as that pressure builds
and then that heat um increases, you can reach temperatures
(10:07):
of like four or five degrees fahrenheit of this water
and it's still not boiling, right, that's right, And then
eventually it does boil. It overcomes that pressure threshold. Well,
it finds its way through to to the escape route,
which is the top of the surface, and it'll just
and that's not the eruption and it'll just squired a
(10:28):
little bit of water out and think, wow, that was
a big relief, and such a big relief that the
steam all of a sudden expands to times the volume
of the water. It's like if you're ever boiling, you
ever steam vegetables in your house, the best way to
steam vegetables is you don't just set it on a
massive boil and cover it up. You get it to
(10:50):
that massive boil and then you turn that heat down low,
and all of a sudden, that pressure drop creates like
massive amounts of steam, right. And the reason why is
because when you increase pressure, you increase the temperature that's
the boiling point of water. If suddenly you have that
temperature still but the pressure decreases, that that water and
(11:11):
this guys are just flash vaporizes. And because there's a
lot more volume to an equal amount of water and steam,
that steam, like you said, expands to what times the
volume And there's your guys are pal Yeah, it's that's
all of a sudden, all the steam in the water
just gets shot out. Depending on what kind of guys
are it is, it's going to take different formations and
(11:33):
be different heights and last different amounts of time. But um,
it'll keep going until it either runs out of water
or it cools down enough for it just start all
over again. Yeah, and then it just starts all over again,
which is how you get something like Old Faithful. Right,
that's right. Once it once it releases that um that
pressure and it shoots out, it's the whole process just
(11:54):
begins again, and you have, Um, guys, there's like Old
Faithful that or run like on a pretty regular schedule.
I think it's between like sixty and eighty five minutes
or something like that. Well, I've got the new schedule
to help schedule because it's been it's been happening with
greater with less frequency and greater power in recent years.
(12:15):
I think it's said since two thousand UM. And it's
a bimodal. They call it bimodal. And if you're going
to Old Paple and Wyoming, Um. There are generally two
eruption durations now, either a long one which is over
four minutes, or a short one, which is about two
and a half minutes. And if you have just missed
the short one, there'll be about an hour before your
(12:37):
next eruption. If you have just missed the long one,
then there's gonna be about an hour and a half
until the next one. But either way, it's it's worth
sticking around for it. Yeah, and it's funny if you
go to the page and there's obviously a webcam up
where you can see it and stuff, but that's not
as fun. But if you go to the web page
and they ask for tips on you know, seeing it,
they say, well, if there's a lot of people sitting
(12:58):
around on the benches, that means there's one upcoming. If
there's a bunch of people getting up and leaving, that
means it just happened. It's like, wow, really, yeah, that's
the best you can do. That sounds like, um, like
hippie park ranger logic exactly. Um okay, so, uh well,
I guess we're onto like famous geysers, right, yeah, Actually
quickly I mentioned I teased about the fourth um thing
(13:21):
being remoteness. Apparently, in the last fifty years, uh producing
energy with geothermal energy production is increased so much that
it's affecting geysers, and so being remote is now believed
to be one of the requirements to be a geyser
because geysers are vanishing because of man because so I
(13:41):
was trying to figure out this out. Maybe you can
help me. That's because we dig down to these this
this um, these geysers of this geo thermal activity, and
in doing so, are we creating like a release valve
so the pressure camp build as much I think So,
I mean they're using it to spind turbines to create energy,
but I know you can also have like a geothermal
(14:03):
system in your backyard, which I don't think he uses.
I don't think it like creates steam. So I feel
like what we're doing then is creating artificial geysers, like
creating an artificial pipe to let steam out, which would
impact any natural guys activity because like we said, they're
very fragile. Earthquakes frequently um cut them off. They also
(14:24):
bring them back to life to Yeah, that's like there
was one called the Stroker geyser that that would be
st r O k K you are, yeah, and that
stroker like stroker race right right, So stroker geyser um
is after the Icelandic well, stroker is after the Icelandic
verb to churn, and actually geysers after the Icelandic verb
(14:46):
um to gush. So this is all very Icelandic in origin,
but that would be g e y s I r
okas in Icelandic. Sure, I won't know how byork pronounced.
And you've seen Christian Wiggs impression of her. Huh, it's
really great. Um Okay, So the Stroker Geyser was actually um.
(15:08):
It was enacted in seventeen nine um because of an earthquake,
and then another earthquake hit in Ee and it became inactive.
It went dormant and the local said, we gotta get
our guys are back. Man, it's all blocked up. So
they cleared it off and now it's running again. I
bet that's probably dangerous work. Dangerous. Um. Another way to
(15:32):
that humans are impacting is a mineral extraction. Apparently in
two thousand three, uh, they were extracting minerals in Chile,
the second largest geyser field in South America, and it
killed it basically from extracting golden stuff. Because basically they
mess with the plumbing and then you're finished. Because it's
(15:55):
like you said, like um, in a pressure cooker has
that little steam, but also it's doesn't explode. The guys
aren't supposed to have that. If they have that, they
just don't go off. They're like, well, fine, I'll just
let some steam off and um, um, that does happen naturally.
There are steam vents located near geysers, um like yellow stones. Like,
(16:16):
we have ten thousand um geo thermal um what is
the word they use, Uh, basically different things. We have
ten thousands of your thermal different things. Um. But the
vast majority of those are like steam vents. No, they're
they're natural, Like they're like little steam releases that come
(16:37):
up through fissures in the earth. I thought you meant
we put those in to make old bathele like safers. No,
they happen naturally. Um. But I think it's the same
thing as drilling a hole down to a geotherrmal um
different thing and uh and tapping it to run a turbine. Okay,
at least you didn't say interesting. Interesting, man, This stuff
(16:58):
is very interesting. Um, Old people, is a cone geyser?
I'm not sure I understand the difference. Is it the
is it the difference? Is it the outlet like the
shape of the thing above the earth. Yeah, So with
the cone, guys, where the ryo light bubbles up enough
over time that it builds up and it forms a
little cone and that's what the guys are shoots out of.
And normally with the cone guys or you have a
(17:20):
big stream going is yet going into the air like
hundreds of feet That one in um in uh New Zealand,
the Wyman Geo geyser. Um, that one streamed four d
seventy ft into the air and for those of you
in New Zealand, that's four hundred and fifty that's a
world record, right yeah, yeah, nineteen oh two, yeah, before
(17:43):
it killed people, right, and then it went dormant in
nineteen o four because of the landslide, which makes me
think like this thing is coming back. It just gotta
bubble back up, kill people and then shut down right afterwards. Yeah,
it's really had a really chaotic to your career. It's
like a rock star overdosed on heroin or something. Um.
But anyway, as I was saying, um, the cone shoots
(18:06):
a jet into the air. The fountain Um, it shoots
in a much more like chaotic streme whatever. But it
doesn't come up from a cone. It comes up from
a pool. So at the surface the geyser goes into
a pool of water and then that it will erupt
out of the water, and that would be the Grand guyser. Um,
(18:26):
the tall that's the tallest regularly erupting guys are on
the planet. And that is also a yellowstone. Yeah, the tallest,
and that it shoots up in the air. Yeah, two
feet in crazy fountain e hard to predict fashion. Yeah,
which is pretty surprising too, because the cone geyser shoots
a jet straight up in the air and this fountain
geyser is still beating the average one. Yeah. Could you
(18:49):
imagine if it was a cone guyser, it would be
mind blowing to the moon. Uh. You mentioned the stroker
Ace geyser, the steamboat guys Yeah, apparently can sheet water
up to three hundred feet. But don't bother stopping by
because it hasn't happened for fifty years. It can go
fifty years, but yeah, it's finicky. Yeah. Um. There's also
(19:11):
the geyser, which is the o g geyser because that's
where the word came from. It's a geyser in Iceland.
It was discovered in Umour, so it's the oldest known
guys are on the planet. But they took some samples
of the silica that forms the cone of the castle
guys are in Yellowstone. That's the one they think is
(19:31):
five thousand to forty thousand years old. Apparently silicon dating
can use some work. I did see one interesting little
and it wasn't a joke. It was almost like you
could hear science guys laughing about it. Though. You geysers
are always called geysers, even if they quit erupting. But
(19:52):
that ceased to make seeds to be a geyser at
that point. But once you have erupted, you're always called
a geyser. The cone formerly known as geyser. Yeah, that's
what I would call it. Shameful. Uh, listen, do you
know that whole story about Prince doing that, about changing
his name. No, I never knew the story behind it.
(20:13):
So he was locked in a contract with Sony that
he didn't like, and Sony basically said, you can't release
an album as Prince. Yes. And but also that had
something to do with him acting basically crazy, like he
acted crazy on purpose to get out of his contract
because there was some sort of clause where like if
he was if he went nuts or whatever, it would
avoid his contract. So he did that, and he had
(20:36):
that font release and I remember he released it to
the media like, um, his little symbol yes to as
like a font add on so you could just print
the symbol when you were writing about him. And his
contract with Sony was either avoided or they gave it
up or whatever. But he was basically like, I'll show
you crazy, but I need to get out of this contract. Boy.
(20:56):
One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Oh yeah,
I'll bet and I don't even think I put it
my top five when we had that listener mail at time,
but probably forgot. It's probably in my top five. I
would like to see print. Sometimes he brings it he um.
He bought you met a bottle of water at um
a Miles Davis show at the Cotton Club. Really wow.
Her friends came up to see the lemon Heads and
(21:18):
she's like, yeah, I'll go with you, and then found
out that Miles Davis was playing. It's like, I'm gonna
go over here yourself, bottle of water. Evan Dando, Miles Davis.
Let me think about that. Sorry, e d um So
that's uh, that's print. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Guys are too. Um.
(21:38):
If you want to learn more about guysers, you can
type that word g E y S e r s.
That's the English spelling. We didn't do it icelandically. Um,
but you type that in the search bar at how
stuff works dot com and it will bring up this fine,
fine article. And I said search part how stuff works
dot com, which means it's time for plug fest. It's
time for listener mail. All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this,
(22:02):
uh given a local Brooklyn night a plug for his election.
But that's not how it started. Okay, that was kind
of a complicated title. Um, guys who just listen to
your podcast How Labor Unions Work? And I want to
thank you for trying to give a very balanced a
story to what is a very complicated and contentious subject.
As a former New York City union organizer, so this
(22:25):
guy is the real deal. I am very familiar with
the arguments against unions, but I truly believe American workers
in the American economy are better off with unions and
without when unions are strong, organizing when unions are strong.
There is some counterpoint to this total acceptance of rampant
greed that was essentially the cause of the financial meltdown
(22:46):
in two thousand and eight. At this point, with unions
at their weakest and a half century, we average Americans
are being held hostage by corporations. That's what he says. Um,
I have to say in my line of work, violence
was not the norm, but intimidation by the employers consant.
They did everything from threatening workers with being fired, lying
to them and telling them they did not have collective
(23:07):
bargaining rights, to telling them the union would only steal
their dues and not get them a good contract. The
deceptive HR person right there. Yeah, Or they would tell workers,
um they would work out individual deals with them, that
they would vote against the union like, Yeah, that's pretty
(23:27):
pretty Harry. Even once when we were organizing at a
Catholic hospital, they told the workers they were going against
God if they tried to organize. Yeah, can you see
like those priests like union breaking cracking heads with mental
to tongue. The only problem I had with your podcast
was the lack of coverage you gave to the Triangle
shirtwaist fire. We've mentioned that. He said it could have
(23:49):
been not more. He said it could deserve its own podcast.
He said it was one of the deadliest industrial accidents
in the United States history. Last year hundreds of people
came out to commemorate the one year anniversary remember of
the lives lost due to lock stairwells and exits. That
fire was a major turning point in labor conditions in
New York City and around the world, as well as
(24:12):
bringing light to women's terrible working conditions. And I wrote
them back and it turns out, uh A day e
d is his name, Fox is running for Brooklyn City Council.
I said, you know what, dude, we'll plug your campaign.
Uh www dot e d E f o X dot
(24:32):
com a a fox dot com and good luck in
your bid for city council in Brooklyn. Yeah, if you
wear um sunglasses with Neon arms on them and into
like your pro union, I would say your vote for this.
I think we can help guarnering you a little bit
of the hipster boat, maybe since we are both aging hipsters.
I am not a hipster, dude. I am not a hipster,
(24:55):
and I've maybe aging, but I'm not a hipster. Well,
you look a lot more like a hips wan you
used to. Well if you, uh, I guess if you
have a political campaign you're running, Um, we want to
hear about it. We heard from another guy. Um in, uh,
was it in Maryland? A state legislator. He's a he's
a legislator for Maryland who was writing about human trafficking.
(25:16):
Next guy shout out to that guy as well. UM,
but if you are a politician that listens to the
stuff you should Know, we want to hear your viewpoints.
Let us know what you gotta say, how we're helping you,
how we can help more that kind of thing you know. Um,
you can tweet to us, just please don't send us
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s y s K podcast. You can join us on
(25:38):
Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
dot com. Yeah h brought to you by the reinvented
(26:05):
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know?
From House Stuff Works dot com bloom and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
(00:22):
and uh, this is stuff you should know. Yeah, just
a couple of regular guys are sitting around. Check. That
was good. I know. I genuinely didn't think you were
going to say Geyser's really a little This was a
pretty cool article. I thought I knew a lot about Geyser's,
(00:44):
but I did not know exactly what was going on there. Yeah.
In fact, I was wrong on a couple of key points.
Oh really, yes, which I will not point out. Oh
come on, well, I thought they'd split out lemonade first
of all. Uh, and I thought that was a little
guy on there doing it. Oh got lepers Yeah, that's
what everybody thinks. I was wrong on both of those points.
(01:06):
Do we have a guyser myth sound effect? I don't
think so. Um does this count as weather? Now? This
is earth science, biogeochemical processes. Okay, I just know you're
trying to be beef up our weather. H this is
not weather. It's not weather, although it does begin with weather. Yeah,
I mean when something precipitates, that's weather, and precipitation precipitates
(01:29):
the explosion of a geyser. That's right. Uh, Chuck, I
have no guyser introduction. Man, you can't blame me. Though,
Like I looked, and there is really not a lot
going on on guysers. I thought you might tell the
story about the people in nineteen three years that's going
to but I didn't want to just usurp it. Okay,
but let's do that though, since you brought it up,
(01:50):
because I mean I thought about that, I was like,
whoa hang back, Josh hanging back? Well, apparently guysers can
kill you. Um. And you know when you see something
like old Faith will go off. That's why you're three
ft away watching it. Yeah, you know you're not gonna
be on top of the thing. But apparently nineteen three
in New Zealand, which is allowsy with geyser's um, some
(02:10):
tourists visiting there got caught in a jet at Uh
why man, why Mangu Valley nice? And uh? It killed
all four people and carried them more than a mile away. Yes,
that is sad, and after after we explain how geysers work,
I think that will well we should mention that again
(02:30):
because once I understood how guysers worked and I read that,
I was like, those people met a terrible, terrible demise,
like they that was terrible way to go. Yeah, I mean,
it's tantamount to getting thrown into a volcano or caught
in dropping into the cracks of an earthquake, and they're
all kind of related, as it turns out, or being
(02:51):
bludgeoned to death, which is not related. No, but it's
pretty bad way to go to geothermal properties. So um chuck. Geysers,
as I learned from reading this article on how stuff
works dot com um our beloved site um, are actually
kind of fragile and there's not that many this this articles,
(03:11):
there's a thousand guysers roughly in in the world, and
um I read elsewhere that there's only about fifty guyser
fields on the planet and about two thirds of those
have five or fewer guysers, which makes yellow Stone a
pretty substantial repository of geyser and guys are related activity.
(03:33):
Because when you're talking guys are you you don't ever
just talk guys, or you're also talking um fumer roles.
You're talking hot springs, mud pots, steam vents, and all
of them are based around the same thing, which is
there's some sort of geo thermal activity that's relatively close
to the Earth's surface, right, um. And there's three components
(03:58):
to a geyser um and they are water supply, plumbing system,
and heat source. Yeah. And I'm gonna argue with forth
later on later though, I have to wait. I'm gonna
call it. We'll just go ahead and say what it is,
which is a remoteness, all right, and then we'll we'll
circle back because detached from its family, it comes very remote.
(04:22):
So a water supply, let's start there, because if you
ain't got water, you ain't got no geyser. Yeah. And
I saw in this article that um rivers can often
um form the water supply. I didn't. I didn't see
that elsewhere. For the most part, from what I from
what I can gather is that the water supply is
(04:43):
um precipitation, rain and snow melt percolating through the Earth's
crust over five thousand or so years, and then it
trickles down to the point where it comes in contact with,
like we said, relatively shallow geo thermal activity, usually very
very volcano volcano or volcanic activity, or very very old
(05:04):
like on in the throes of death volcanic activity. Yeah. Um,
And it can be anything from magma to um cool magma.
But it's very hot rock and it's close enough to
the surface that this water doesn't evaporate, it starts to
trickle back up. Yeah. And when do you stay close?
Three miles down it seems like a long way down,
(05:25):
but if you're talking the planet Earth, it's nothing. That's
pretty close. If you're talking magma, it's pretty close. We're
talking tectonic plates, it's pretty close. It's closer than you
want it to be. Pal, it's a go ahead, okay.
Number two the plumbing system, right, very important. Um. The
plumbing system is a series of fissures that run miles
(05:48):
beneath the surface. And one important aspect of these fissures
is they're basically sealed shut with silica from rhyolite. It's
volcanic rock. Um. And like these minerals have sealed this
rock shut, right, So like really important part of it,
that water that's percolating down. When it heats up and
starts to travel back up, it takes that silica that
(06:10):
riolite with it and then it just kind of acts
as a ceiling along these pipes. Over five hundred thousand years,
however long it takes for it to go back up,
it's it's ceiling and it's making it water tight. Well yeah,
and I imagine I didn't read this, but I imagine
that this kind of activity happens elsewhere on the planet,
but it's not sealed up, so it just disperses, right, Yeah,
(06:32):
Because one of the key ingredients of a geyser is pressure,
high pressure, that's right. And to get that pressure in
these pipes, you have to have rylelite coated sealed pipes.
That's right. Okay, So there's the plumbing system and it
can the plumbing system barries. All guysers are different. Sometimes
it's just like a huge, long vertical chaft. Sometimes it
binds and turns and winds around. Okay, So this is
(06:55):
this is something that actually differentiates guys are from a
hot spring. So a hot spring is just like a
one like a long vertical shaft coming from hot water
um up to the top. But there's no obstruction. What
makes the guys or a geyser is the fact that
there's an obstruction in the plumbing right where the hot
spring water can just move freely up and down. There's
(07:15):
there's just free exchange and you soak around in it
like a big lazy wall rush, but there's no pressure
with the guys are there's some sort of obstruction where
either say, the water on its way back up and
there's this wide pool that bottlenecks at the top. So
now you have pressure. There's a bunch of different pipes
feeding into one pipe and they all connect to the
(07:36):
same place another bottleneck or this this pipe of water
is so wide and so deep that the pressure from
the water above the water at the bottom is so
tremendous that for all intensive purposes it creates a bottleneck
just strictly out of pressure without an actual obstruction. Yeah,
(07:56):
just the weight of the water itself is so great.
So we have a water supply and a plumbing um
system that is sealed with rhyolite which makes it water
tight and pressurized, and then some sort of means for
pressure to build. Yeah, and uh, I guess we can
go ahead and liking it to a pressure cooker. Now,
so you understand what we're talking about. If you've ever
(08:16):
cooked with a pressure cooker at home, or if you've
ever eaten it Chick fil A and eating their delicious
pressure fried chicken, is that how they do it? Oh? Yeah,
pressure fried? So that's whether so juicy. Um, So water
is standard water is just gonna boil it like a
hundred degrees celsius French water. Um. If you're if you're
(08:39):
cooking with a pressure cooker, which means you know, the
litt a sealed shut it lets out some steam or
else it would explode obviously, Um, it will actually take
a lot more energy to boil and bubble up, which
means more heat. And so you can actually cooking a
pressure cooker at like twenty five degrees right, because it's
just substantial for under a pressure. It takes a lot
(09:01):
more for what it was boiling water. But it's like
air bubbles forming and rising to the top. When the
pressure is too great, it can't boil. So the boiling
point rises, right, Well, it boils, but it won't it
can't evaporate. Well, no, it can't. It can't form the
bubbles that carry to the top. So it can't actually boil.
So it's just sitting there in this high pressure environment
at high higher than boiling point temperatures and the same
(09:25):
things going on in the guyser. Right, You've got the obstruction,
you've got this heated water, and you have a tremendous
amount of pressure because again we're talking about miles deep
um and there's that's quite a bit of pressure at
the bottom the water at the bottom. It's getting hotter
and hotter and hotter. Yeah, like, um, I mean, I
(09:47):
guess it depends. But for guys are to form and start,
they think the oldest one is between five thousand and
forty years old. So yeah, so it takes a little
while because you know, the plumbing has to has to
steal up in every thing. But as that pressure builds
and then that heat um increases, you can reach temperatures
(10:07):
of like four or five degrees fahrenheit of this water
and it's still not boiling, right, that's right, And then
eventually it does boil. It overcomes that pressure threshold. Well,
it finds its way through to to the escape route,
which is the top of the surface, and it'll just
and that's not the eruption and it'll just squired a
(10:28):
little bit of water out and think, wow, that was
a big relief, and such a big relief that the
steam all of a sudden expands to times the volume
of the water. It's like if you're ever boiling, you
ever steam vegetables in your house, the best way to
steam vegetables is you don't just set it on a
massive boil and cover it up. You get it to
(10:50):
that massive boil and then you turn that heat down low,
and all of a sudden, that pressure drop creates like
massive amounts of steam, right. And the reason why is
because when you increase pressure, you increase the temperature that's
the boiling point of water. If suddenly you have that
temperature still but the pressure decreases, that that water and
(11:11):
this guys are just flash vaporizes. And because there's a
lot more volume to an equal amount of water and steam,
that steam, like you said, expands to what times the
volume And there's your guys are pal Yeah, it's that's
all of a sudden, all the steam in the water
just gets shot out. Depending on what kind of guys
are it is, it's going to take different formations and
(11:33):
be different heights and last different amounts of time. But um,
it'll keep going until it either runs out of water
or it cools down enough for it just start all
over again. Yeah, and then it just starts all over again,
which is how you get something like Old Faithful. Right,
that's right. Once it once it releases that um that
pressure and it shoots out, it's the whole process just
(11:54):
begins again, and you have, Um, guys, there's like Old
Faithful that or run like on a pretty regular schedule.
I think it's between like sixty and eighty five minutes
or something like that. Well, I've got the new schedule
to help schedule because it's been it's been happening with
greater with less frequency and greater power in recent years.
(12:15):
I think it's said since two thousand UM. And it's
a bimodal. They call it bimodal. And if you're going
to Old Paple and Wyoming, Um. There are generally two
eruption durations now, either a long one which is over
four minutes, or a short one, which is about two
and a half minutes. And if you have just missed
the short one, there'll be about an hour before your
(12:37):
next eruption. If you have just missed the long one,
then there's gonna be about an hour and a half
until the next one. But either way, it's it's worth
sticking around for it. Yeah, and it's funny if you
go to the page and there's obviously a webcam up
where you can see it and stuff, but that's not
as fun. But if you go to the web page
and they ask for tips on you know, seeing it,
they say, well, if there's a lot of people sitting
(12:58):
around on the benches, that means there's one upcoming. If
there's a bunch of people getting up and leaving, that
means it just happened. It's like, wow, really, yeah, that's
the best you can do. That sounds like, um, like
hippie park ranger logic exactly. Um okay, so, uh well,
I guess we're onto like famous geysers, right, yeah, Actually
quickly I mentioned I teased about the fourth um thing
(13:21):
being remoteness. Apparently, in the last fifty years, uh producing
energy with geothermal energy production is increased so much that
it's affecting geysers, and so being remote is now believed
to be one of the requirements to be a geyser
because geysers are vanishing because of man because so I
(13:41):
was trying to figure out this out. Maybe you can
help me. That's because we dig down to these this
this um, these geysers of this geo thermal activity, and
in doing so, are we creating like a release valve
so the pressure camp build as much I think So,
I mean they're using it to spind turbines to create energy,
but I know you can also have like a geothermal
(14:03):
system in your backyard, which I don't think he uses.
I don't think it like creates steam. So I feel
like what we're doing then is creating artificial geysers, like
creating an artificial pipe to let steam out, which would
impact any natural guys activity because like we said, they're
very fragile. Earthquakes frequently um cut them off. They also
(14:24):
bring them back to life to Yeah, that's like there
was one called the Stroker geyser that that would be
st r O k K you are, yeah, and that
stroker like stroker race right right, So stroker geyser um
is after the Icelandic well, stroker is after the Icelandic
verb to churn, and actually geysers after the Icelandic verb
(14:46):
um to gush. So this is all very Icelandic in origin,
but that would be g e y s I r
okas in Icelandic. Sure, I won't know how byork pronounced.
And you've seen Christian Wiggs impression of her. Huh, it's
really great. Um Okay, So the Stroker Geyser was actually um.
(15:08):
It was enacted in seventeen nine um because of an earthquake,
and then another earthquake hit in Ee and it became inactive.
It went dormant and the local said, we gotta get
our guys are back. Man, it's all blocked up. So
they cleared it off and now it's running again. I
bet that's probably dangerous work. Dangerous. Um. Another way to
(15:32):
that humans are impacting is a mineral extraction. Apparently in
two thousand three, uh, they were extracting minerals in Chile,
the second largest geyser field in South America, and it
killed it basically from extracting golden stuff. Because basically they
mess with the plumbing and then you're finished. Because it's
(15:55):
like you said, like um, in a pressure cooker has
that little steam, but also it's doesn't explode. The guys
aren't supposed to have that. If they have that, they
just don't go off. They're like, well, fine, I'll just
let some steam off and um, um, that does happen naturally.
There are steam vents located near geysers, um like yellow stones. Like,
(16:16):
we have ten thousand um geo thermal um what is
the word they use, Uh, basically different things. We have
ten thousands of your thermal different things. Um. But the
vast majority of those are like steam vents. No, they're
they're natural, Like they're like little steam releases that come
(16:37):
up through fissures in the earth. I thought you meant
we put those in to make old bathele like safers. No,
they happen naturally. Um. But I think it's the same
thing as drilling a hole down to a geotherrmal um
different thing and uh and tapping it to run a turbine. Okay,
at least you didn't say interesting. Interesting, man, This stuff
(16:58):
is very interesting. Um, Old people, is a cone geyser?
I'm not sure I understand the difference. Is it the
is it the difference? Is it the outlet like the
shape of the thing above the earth. Yeah, So with
the cone, guys, where the ryo light bubbles up enough
over time that it builds up and it forms a
little cone and that's what the guys are shoots out of.
And normally with the cone guys or you have a
(17:20):
big stream going is yet going into the air like
hundreds of feet That one in um in uh New Zealand,
the Wyman Geo geyser. Um, that one streamed four d
seventy ft into the air and for those of you
in New Zealand, that's four hundred and fifty that's a
world record, right yeah, yeah, nineteen oh two, yeah, before
(17:43):
it killed people, right, and then it went dormant in
nineteen o four because of the landslide, which makes me
think like this thing is coming back. It just gotta
bubble back up, kill people and then shut down right afterwards. Yeah,
it's really had a really chaotic to your career. It's
like a rock star overdosed on heroin or something. Um.
But anyway, as I was saying, um, the cone shoots
(18:06):
a jet into the air. The fountain Um, it shoots
in a much more like chaotic streme whatever. But it
doesn't come up from a cone. It comes up from
a pool. So at the surface the geyser goes into
a pool of water and then that it will erupt
out of the water, and that would be the Grand guyser. Um,
(18:26):
the tall that's the tallest regularly erupting guys are on
the planet. And that is also a yellowstone. Yeah, the tallest,
and that it shoots up in the air. Yeah, two
feet in crazy fountain e hard to predict fashion. Yeah,
which is pretty surprising too, because the cone geyser shoots
a jet straight up in the air and this fountain
geyser is still beating the average one. Yeah. Could you
(18:49):
imagine if it was a cone guyser, it would be
mind blowing to the moon. Uh. You mentioned the stroker
Ace geyser, the steamboat guys Yeah, apparently can sheet water
up to three hundred feet. But don't bother stopping by
because it hasn't happened for fifty years. It can go
fifty years, but yeah, it's finicky. Yeah. Um. There's also
(19:11):
the geyser, which is the o g geyser because that's
where the word came from. It's a geyser in Iceland.
It was discovered in Umour, so it's the oldest known
guys are on the planet. But they took some samples
of the silica that forms the cone of the castle
guys are in Yellowstone. That's the one they think is
(19:31):
five thousand to forty thousand years old. Apparently silicon dating
can use some work. I did see one interesting little
and it wasn't a joke. It was almost like you
could hear science guys laughing about it. Though. You geysers
are always called geysers, even if they quit erupting. But
(19:52):
that ceased to make seeds to be a geyser at
that point. But once you have erupted, you're always called
a geyser. The cone formerly known as geyser. Yeah, that's
what I would call it. Shameful. Uh, listen, do you
know that whole story about Prince doing that, about changing
his name. No, I never knew the story behind it.
(20:13):
So he was locked in a contract with Sony that
he didn't like, and Sony basically said, you can't release
an album as Prince. Yes. And but also that had
something to do with him acting basically crazy, like he
acted crazy on purpose to get out of his contract
because there was some sort of clause where like if
he was if he went nuts or whatever, it would
avoid his contract. So he did that, and he had
(20:36):
that font release and I remember he released it to
the media like, um, his little symbol yes to as
like a font add on so you could just print
the symbol when you were writing about him. And his
contract with Sony was either avoided or they gave it
up or whatever. But he was basically like, I'll show
you crazy, but I need to get out of this contract. Boy.
(20:56):
One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Oh yeah,
I'll bet and I don't even think I put it
my top five when we had that listener mail at time,
but probably forgot. It's probably in my top five. I
would like to see print. Sometimes he brings it he um.
He bought you met a bottle of water at um
a Miles Davis show at the Cotton Club. Really wow.
Her friends came up to see the lemon Heads and
(21:18):
she's like, yeah, I'll go with you, and then found
out that Miles Davis was playing. It's like, I'm gonna
go over here yourself, bottle of water. Evan Dando, Miles Davis.
Let me think about that. Sorry, e d um So
that's uh, that's print. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Guys are too. Um.
(21:38):
If you want to learn more about guysers, you can
type that word g E y S e r s.
That's the English spelling. We didn't do it icelandically. Um,
but you type that in the search bar at how
stuff works dot com and it will bring up this fine,
fine article. And I said search part how stuff works
dot com, which means it's time for plug fest. It's
time for listener mail. All right, Josh, I'm gonna call this,
(22:02):
uh given a local Brooklyn night a plug for his election.
But that's not how it started. Okay, that was kind
of a complicated title. Um, guys who just listen to
your podcast How Labor Unions Work? And I want to
thank you for trying to give a very balanced a
story to what is a very complicated and contentious subject.
As a former New York City union organizer, so this
(22:25):
guy is the real deal. I am very familiar with
the arguments against unions, but I truly believe American workers
in the American economy are better off with unions and
without when unions are strong, organizing when unions are strong.
There is some counterpoint to this total acceptance of rampant
greed that was essentially the cause of the financial meltdown
(22:46):
in two thousand and eight. At this point, with unions
at their weakest and a half century, we average Americans
are being held hostage by corporations. That's what he says. Um,
I have to say in my line of work, violence
was not the norm, but intimidation by the employers consant.
They did everything from threatening workers with being fired, lying
to them and telling them they did not have collective
(23:07):
bargaining rights, to telling them the union would only steal
their dues and not get them a good contract. The
deceptive HR person right there. Yeah, Or they would tell workers,
um they would work out individual deals with them, that
they would vote against the union like, Yeah, that's pretty
(23:27):
pretty Harry. Even once when we were organizing at a
Catholic hospital, they told the workers they were going against
God if they tried to organize. Yeah, can you see
like those priests like union breaking cracking heads with mental
to tongue. The only problem I had with your podcast
was the lack of coverage you gave to the Triangle
shirtwaist fire. We've mentioned that. He said it could have
(23:49):
been not more. He said it could deserve its own podcast.
He said it was one of the deadliest industrial accidents
in the United States history. Last year hundreds of people
came out to commemorate the one year anniversary remember of
the lives lost due to lock stairwells and exits. That
fire was a major turning point in labor conditions in
New York City and around the world, as well as
(24:12):
bringing light to women's terrible working conditions. And I wrote
them back and it turns out, uh A day e
d is his name, Fox is running for Brooklyn City Council.
I said, you know what, dude, we'll plug your campaign.
Uh www dot e d E f o X dot
(24:32):
com a a fox dot com and good luck in
your bid for city council in Brooklyn. Yeah, if you
wear um sunglasses with Neon arms on them and into
like your pro union, I would say your vote for this.
I think we can help guarnering you a little bit
of the hipster boat, maybe since we are both aging hipsters.
I am not a hipster, dude. I am not a hipster,
(24:55):
and I've maybe aging, but I'm not a hipster. Well,
you look a lot more like a hips wan you
used to. Well if you, uh, I guess if you
have a political campaign you're running, Um, we want to
hear about it. We heard from another guy. Um in, uh,
was it in Maryland? A state legislator. He's a he's
a legislator for Maryland who was writing about human trafficking.
(25:16):
Next guy shout out to that guy as well. UM,
but if you are a politician that listens to the
stuff you should Know, we want to hear your viewpoints.
Let us know what you gotta say, how we're helping you,
how we can help more that kind of thing you know. Um,
you can tweet to us, just please don't send us
a picture of your junk like other politicians. UM to
s y s K podcast. You can join us on
(25:38):
Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know, and you
can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery
dot com. Yeah h brought to you by the reinvented
(26:05):
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
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