A hydrothermal explosion occurred Tuesday morning at Sapphire Pool in Yellowstone National Park's Biscuit Basin. Despite sending parkgoers running for cover and the aftermath looking like Dresden in 1945, no one was injured.
An unusually large eruption of one of Yellowstone’s geysers occurred at Biscuit Basin moments ago. pic.twitter.com/b8Ya4iW1H3
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) July 23, 2024
Yellowstone is volcanically active, and beneath the ground lies a whole lot of water, at terrifically high temperatures—higher than the normal boiling point of water, because the boiling point rises under high pressure. But sometimes the pressure drops drastically, due to seismic activity. When it does, the superhot liquid instantly becomes steam, and because steam takes up more space than liquid, you get a big kaboom. Yesterday's kaboom was a "small" hydrothermic explosion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey; a big one, which happens every 700 years or so, can send boiling water, rocks, and ash more than a mile into the air, and leave a crater a mile wide.
This is all very cool, and if I happened to be visiting one of our majestic national parks at just the once-every-few-centuries moment the geologic ballet decided it was kaboom time, I would have to accept it. In the few seconds before my skin was melted off by the awesome power of the Earth itself, I might curse my bad luck but otherwise acknowledge my helplessness at the hands of fate.
That said: If I must die horribly, I hope it's not at a place called Biscuit Basin.
"Tragedy At Biscuit Basin" is a newspaper headline that I do not wish to top the story of my death. Falling off Roaring Mountain? Respectable. Drowning in Blackwater River? Badass. Rattlesnake Canyon? I couldn't say I wasn't warned. Cremation Creek? Fine, and possibly appropriate, depending on my manner of death. But Biscuit Basin? I do not want to die on a Mario Kart track.
Surely being caught in a hydrothermal explosion would vaporize my nerve endings and make my last few seconds of consciousness bearable. If this happened to me at Biscuit Basin, I would beg anyone nearby to drag my body to the nearby Firehole River and say it happened there, because that is a much cooler place in which to be wiped from existence.
To be clear, I do not want to die at all. I am simply saying that if I must—and we all must—I want it to be at a dignified time and place. Not being murdered in Cuddleboro, Nebraska. Not contracting the deadly Snugglebug parasite. Not being mauled by wolves in the Chunky Corgi Woods.
I consulted our resident rock-knower Patrick Redford, who has visited Biscuit Basin and contemplated the wonder of the eons beneath his feet. He had this to say:
The wonder of Yellowstone is its proximity to continent-spanning geologic violence. The geysers, the mud pots, the superheated rivers: everything that makes the area distinct is evidence that the park sits atop a caldera with sufficient explosive power as to cover the United States in a locally thick, continentally thin layer of ash. Every time I go to the park, I think about this, but I can't think about it for too long or else I get that feeling of pitching into infinity. Anyway, Biscuit Basin only sort of gives me that feeling, as the main attraction is that lovely blue pool. Unlike nearby Old Faithful, the beauty of the area is placid, though as this week showed, that's an illusion. There's no peace in a supercaldera, and now that I think about it, a seemingly calm place with a wholesome name like Biscuit Basin would be the most poetically coherent place to die in Yellowstone.
At any event, it's not up to me. When the living, breathing Earth decides my time is up, it will be out of my hands. And as my skin sloughs from my bones and my brain synapses begin to misfire and blink out, I will think one last thought: At least I wasn't in Nutty Putty Cave.
