RHH's photos with the keyword: mud pots

This is hot runoff water from Celestine Pool in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park. The area is called the Fountain Paint Pots for its colored pots of boiling mud.

These trees, killed by geothermal activity, are near the parking area for Fountain Paint Pots in Yellowstone National Park. Some of the Lower Geyser Basin is visible in the background.

These trees have been killed by geothermal activity. They are near the parking area at Fountain Paint Pots in Yellowstone National Park.

At the end of and across the road from Firehole Lake Drive is Fountain Paint Pots, the last of the geyser basins we will be visiting. From the parking area the boardwalk leads through an area of runoff and dead trees, killed by geothermal activity..

The photos I've posted today are all of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park, this of Dragon's Mouth Spring one of the features near the parking area. The Mud Volcano area is on the east side of the lower loop of Yellowstone's main road and one of the worst smelling areas of the park, but very active thermally. The hot mud pots are especially noteworthy. I've only added one inset, of Mud Volcano itself, but have posted other photos of Black Dragon's Cauldron, Sour Lake, Grizzly Fumarole, of animal tracks through the mud pots and of runoff from the springs.

Black Dragon's Cauldron is a sea of seething black or dark gray mud in the back part of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park. This very old photo, a scanned slide taken in 1979, is of the "dragon's tongue."

Sour Lake is a lake of acidic water (sulfuric acid) in the back park of Yellowstone National Park's Mud Volcano area. This old photo, a scanned slide from 1979 shows the lake as it looked many years ago.

Graizzly Fumarole is along the trail to the back part of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park. The trail is a loop that takes you to Sour Lake and Black Dragon's Cauldron.

This is part of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park looking from the parking area to the boardwalk that circles the area with Mud Volcano visible in the background.

The Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park is especially notable for its mud pots, places where the boiling water has mixed with the soil to form pots of hot mud. In this case the mud is marked with animal tracks, probably of a bison that has wandered through the area (it's really hard to get them to stay on the boardwalks). The animals of Yellowstone, especially in cold weather, are often found near the hydrothermal areas where it is warm and grass is growing. They do not always survive their trips through these areas.

The patterns in the mud here were left by runoff from the hot springs and mud pots of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park.

This is the lower part of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park with the trail to Sour Lake and Black Dragon's Cauldron leading off into the background.

Black Dragon's Cauldron is at the back of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park and is reached by a short trail from the parking area. It is a large pot of seething gray mud and is a relatively new feature of the Yellowstone landscape. It first formed in 1948 and has moved south since then about 200 feet (60 meters), a good example of Yellowstone's ever-changing hydrothermal features. The insets show the lower part of the Mud Volcano area with the trail to this feature leading off into the background, Sour Lake, which is next to Black Dragon's Mouth and which has been affected by its formation, and a feathered spectator photographed nearby,

Finishing our tour of the Artist's Paint Pots area of Yellowstone we come to the mud pots near the top of Pint Pot Hill. The walk through this area is about a mile from the parking lot and involves a short climb up that hill to the mud pots from which one loops back down to the lower area and the features there. Mud pots, areas of boiling mud, are found in different places in Yellowstone. Here the mud is white or gray. In other areas it is black or reddish. One of the times we were here the mud was splattering all over the boardwalk and we had to be careful it did not get on us. The other insets show the boiling and bubbling mud as well as the view from Paint Pot Hill near these features.

This is some of the boiling mud at Artist's Paint Pots in Yellowstone National Park. We had to dodge some of the globs of mud that were being thrown up by this feature when we took this photo. The mud pots are on the side of Paint Pot Hill, a short hike and climb from the parking area.

This is the view from Paint Pot Hill in Yellowstone National Park. A short hike to the hill and a short climb up the hill reach this view and the mud pots beyond.