Book 5, Question 58
Steamy Surprise! Why Do Hot Springs and Geysers Exist?
In some places, water seeps down into the ground and gets heated by hot rock deep below. That hot water can rise back up as a hot spring. In a geyser, the heated water and steam build pressure until they shoot up into the air.
From the book
Page from A Million Whys Book 5
More fun facts
- Deep below the ground, Earth is much warmer than at the surface, and some of that heat reaches the surface in hot springs.
- A hot spring is a pool of water heated from below.
- A geyser is a hot spring with a narrow squeeze in its underground plumbing, so pressure builds up until it erupts.
- When some of the trapped water suddenly flashes into steam, the geyser blasts water into the air.
- Yellowstone National Park has more than 10,000 hot features, and more than 500 of them are geysers.
- Mudpots are hot springs so acidic that they dissolve the rock around them, and they usually have little water.
- Fumaroles let out steam and other gases instead of water.
Sources: National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey, Science News Explores
Questions kids ask
Why does a geyser erupt again and again?
Water refills its narrow plumbing, heats up, and bursts out as steam each time the pressure builds.