[Geysers] Pelican Creek Mud Volcano

Fri Apr 7 07:07:13 PDT 2006

Actually, Pelican Creek Mud Volcano is still THERE. I visited it a few
years ago. It is located a couple miles south of Fern Lake Patrol Cabin on
the east side of the trail down Pelican Creek and at the spot on the map
where it says "Hot Springs."

The feature is  a giant black mudpot that was very active and exciting when
I was there. It remains much as Mitchell described it in 1879, the year
after Peale did most of his studies.

Lee Whittlesey
Historian, NPS
YNP

                      TSBryan at aol.com                                                                                           
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                      wc.edu                   Subject:  [Geysers] A mud geyser                                                 

                      04/06/2006 07:16                                                                                          
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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
----------

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] S.Weir Mitchell, "Through the Yellowstone Park to Fort Custer.",
Lippincott's Magazine 26:30-31, July 1880.
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