RHH's photos with the keyword: black dragon's cauldron

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.

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,

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.

Sour Lake is at the back of the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone National Park. It is about the temperature of bathwater but would take off your skin since it is full of sulfuric acid. It is reached by a short trail from the parking area.

Photographed near the Mud Volcano area of Yellowstone, this Canadian Goose was apparently basking in the steam from one of the hydrotherrmal features of the area.