Bubbling Mud Another kind of hot spring is called a mud pot. Steam and gas bubble up through mud. T e bubbles grow and grow. T en, pop! T ey break. A mud pot smells bad, like rotten
eggs. T e smell comes from a gas in magma. T e gas and water mix and turn into acid. T is acid slowly breaks down rock. It turns rock into clay and then mud. Over a long time, it forms this stinky pool. Mud pots may not be as exciting
as other places here. T ey add to the supervolcano’s many sounds, though. Geysers rumble and roar. Mud pots gurgle, burp, and pop.
Fuming Fumaroles Listen for a hiss, too. T at’s the sound of a fumarole. No water gushes out of this “dry geyser.” Instead, steam and other gases blast out. Fumaroles change the land. Few
plants can stand all their heat, so very little lives here. We scientists love this place, though. It helps us know more about what’s going on under the crust.
FAST FACT: There are only 30 active supervolcanoes in the world. Yellowstone
is the only one located on land. 22 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXPLORER
Forest of Stone Our last stop at this supervolcano is a petrified forest. Heat and minerals from melted rock slowly turned the trees into stone here. Long ago, volcanoes erupted. In a
flash, they buried the whole forest in ash. T e trees didn’t even have time to fall down! In time, water slowly trickled into
the ash. It seeped into the wood. T is water had picked up minerals from volcanic rock. T ese minerals turned the trees to stone. T is stone forest stayed hidden for
a long time. In fact, a new forest grew on top of it. Eventually, though, water and wind slowly wore away the land. T ey uncovered the stone trees.
Ready to Rumble? I hope you liked your tour of this supervolcano. T ink of all that we’ve seen. Hot springs slowly simmering. Geysers quickly spraying. Mud pots constantly popping. Fumaroles suddenly hissing. Luckily for us, this supervolcano
isn’t ready to erupt any time soon. Yet thanks to all these fast and slow changes on Earth’s surface, we know it’s alive and well.
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