[Geysers] A mud geyser

[TSBryan at aol.com]

the Pelican Creek Mud Volcano most likely no longer exists as it did in the  
1870s (surprise ! ), but the following description that I just found in  
_Wonderland Nomenclature_ is fun, and remids one of the "vertically gifted  cyclic 
mud pot" at Pocket Basin.
 
Scott Bryan
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Peale took note of the following  description of the spring written by Dr. S. 
Weir Mitchell who passed it in  1879: 
"as it has not been hitherto  examined by any save hunters, I shall describe 
[it] at some length.  A gradual rising ground made up of soft  sulphureous and 
calcareous earth was crowned by a more abrupt rise some  thirty-five feet 
high, composed of tough gray clay.  This was pierced by a cone of regular  form 
about thirty feet across at top and five feet at the bottom.  On the west, 
about one-third of the  circumference was wanting from a point six feet above the 
lowest level, thus  enabling one to be at a distance or to stand close by, and 
yet see to the bottom  of the pit.  The ground all around  and the shrubs and 
trees were dotted thick with flakes of dry mud, which gave,  at a distance, a 
curious stippled look to the mud-spattered surfaces.  As I stood watching the 
volcano I could  see through the clouds of steam it steadily emitted that the 
bottom was full of  dark gray clay mud, thicker than a good mush, and that, 
apparently, there were  two or more vents.  The outbreak of  imprisoned steam 
at intervals of a half minute or more threw the mud in small  fig-like masses 
from five to forty feet in air with a dull, booming sound,  sometimes loud 
enough to be heard for miles through the awful stillness of these  lonely hills.  
It is clear, from the  fact of our finding these mudpatches at least one 
hundred yards from the crater,  that at times much more violent explosions take 
place.  The constant plastering of the slopes of  the crater which these 
explosions cause tends to seal up its vent, but the  greater explosions cleanse it at 
times, and all the while the steam softens the  masses on the sides, so that 
they slip back into the boiling caldron below.  As one faces the slit in the 
cone there  lies to the right a pool of creamy thin mud, white and yellow, 
feebly  boiling.  It is some thirty feet  wide, and must be not more than twenty 
feet from the crater; its level I guessed  at sixteen feet above that of the 
bottom of the crater. 
"After an hour's observation near to the volcano I retired some fifty  feet, 
and, sheltering myself under a stunted pine, waited in the hope of seeing  a 
greater outbreak.  After an hour  more the boiling lessened and the frequent 
explosions ceased for perhaps fifteen  minutes.  Then [all] of a sudden  came a 
booming sound, followed by a hoarse noise, as the crater filled with  steam, 
out of which shot, some seventy-five feet in air, about a cartload of  mud.  It 
fell over an area of fifty  yards around the crater in large or small masses, 
which flattened as they  struck.  As soon as it ended I  walked toward the 
crater.  A moment  later a second squirt shot out sideways and fell in a line 
athwart the mud-pool  near by, crossing the spot where I had been standing so 
long, and covering me,  as I advanced, with rare patches of hot mud.  Some 
change took place after this in the  character and consistency of the mud, and now, 
at intervals, the curious  spectacle was afforded by rings of mud like the 
smoke-rings cast by a cannon or  engine-chimney.  As they turned in  air they 
resembled at times the figure 8; once they assumed the form of a huge  irregular 
spiral some ten feet high, although usually the figures were like long  
spikes, or, more rarely, thin formless leaves, and even like bats or deformed  
birds." 

 
____________________________________

_[1]_ (aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ftnref1)   S.Weir Mitchell, "Through 
the Yellowstone Park to Fort Custer.", Lippincott's Magazine  26:30-31, July 
1880.


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