• Question: What are the relationships between geysers (think that is the spelling) and volcanoes?

    Asked by u11bradshawt to Debbie, Glyn, Jon, Kat, Nicola on 18 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Jonathan Stone

      Jonathan Stone answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      Well Geysers are formed when water that is in the ground seeps its way downwards and meets some really hot rocks, causing it to boil and come back to the surface as both steam and water. Whilst you can get hot springs without some nearby magma, it is very difficult to get temperatures hot enough to make the water suddenly boil. So YES – there is a relationship between geysers and volcanoes! The bigger the magma system and the more water that interacts with it, the more geysers. Yellowstone (USA) is thought to have almost half of the world’s known geysers…! This is because there is a very large amount of magma beneath it, and plenty of water that collects in its caldera (big crater), which can then interact with it.

      I haven’t ever seen a geyser…I would quite like to though!

      @glyn could probably tell you about some pretty weird/cool bacteria that are able to live in the places where geysers erupt from…

    • Photo: Glyn Barrett

      Glyn Barrett answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      Hi u11bradshawt! Hi Jon!
      Yes indeed Jon is absolutely correct about the weird/cool (and hot at the same time :P) bacteria living very close to geysers. Bacteria are incredible organisms which have adapted to live in almost place in the world. There is one species of bacterium called Deinococcus radiodurans which can withstand 15,000 grays of ionizing radiation! For comparison 5 grays is even to kill a human being! But this is going off subject a bit 🙂

      I went on a field trip to Iceland with my university and we found some really interesting and beautiful bacteria living near steamy geysers in excess of 120C. The rich concentration of chemicals such as sulphur also make the environment really acidic (like battery acid) but the bacteria do really well and are really happy here. It was great to be able to explore geyser fields and isolate micro-organisms and try to grow them back in the laboratory. Many scientists who work in biology use enzymes produced by these bacteria on a daily basis.

      Although Im not sure if bacteria could live in volcanoes. Molten lava might be pushing it a bit. But you never know…

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