[Geysers] Rainbow Springs (plural)

[Lee_Whittlesey at nps.gov]

Grover and others interested----

These photos are very interesting and not surprising to me.  However, the
correct name for this remote area on Mirror Plateau is Rainbow Springs, and
not the singular version. The entire area is called Rainbow Springs, and
there are no names in the area for individual springs.

Lee Whittlesey




                                                                                                                                       
                      snorkology at sysmat                                                                                                
                      rix.net                  To:       geysers at wwc.edu                                                               
                      Sent by:                 cc:       (bcc: Lee Whittlesey/YELL/NPS)                                                
                      geysers-bounces at w        Subject:  Re: [Geysers] Yellowstone curiosity                                           
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                      03/13/2007 02:20                                                                                                 
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Hi all,

I'm attaching some photos of something my father picked up back in the
1960's during field work as a geochemist for Gulf Oil.I'm not sure of the
motives, but apparently they were checking out the composition of the oil
that floats on the surface of Rainbow Spring, and collected samples of it
for study. My father kept a vial of it, and it's pretty interesting stuff.
In warm air, it's a nearly transparent liquid, but get much cooler than
room temperature and it "freezes" into a kind of slush made of crystals of
sulfur and various waxes that precipitate out, mixed with liquid oil.

In the first photo, you see the oil in the liquid state, in the second you
can see the slushy appearance, and the third is a close-up of the crystals
under 20x magnification.

By the way, do not confuse Rainbow Spring with Rainbow Pool---Rainbow
Spring is well off into the backcountry, a two day pack trip as I
recall.Anyway, I bet many of you never realized that Yellowstone had oil.
Don't spread that around :-) ...

                       Grover Schrayer
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