**2 Yellowstone workers fired after watering geyser
**
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090514/D986AKQ00.html
My favorite line:
Whew!
Well, see, they took the park name (YELLOWstone) a bit too literally.
Now we know why the spring water is so warm.
Isn’t Coors made from spring water?
[Demetri Martin] There is a small but important difference between peeing in the pool and peeing INTO the pool… Location. Location. Location.
This is the real issue. Geysers and the surrounding areas are not safe, so punishing people who break the rules is important (because when nature does the punishing, she does so with a messy lethality and other people get to risk their lives to clean up the bodies). Also, a geyser involves superheated water, and anything that disturbs the delicate balance between pressure and heat (maybe like introduced pee) could trigger an unexpected eruption (blowing said pee-er to kingdom come).
Si
very very unlikely, given the temperature and the pressure involved in a geyser like Old Faithful that urine would have any affect on it, especially the depth that the actual pressure buildup happens at.
Well, I agree, but maybe that rock you idly kick into the mouth of the geyser while waiting to start…
I know that at Whakarewarewa (thermal area in Rotorua, NZ) there are pools that are so close to boiling that things thrown in cause eruptive boiling due to nucleation. The local Maori use side channels for cooking, due to the risks associated with using the main pool itself. Geysers are wonderfully unstable, and playing with them is really risky.
As for idiots who go off path and fall into pools, I’d leave the bodies as a warning to future generations - a silica coated skeleton would look really cool.
Si
Stupid. It is really dangerous to get close to the thermal features in Yellowstone, and people have died from being so close. I read Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park and most of the thermal deaths in that book were from people going off the trails. There is one geyser in Norris Basin that stopped erupting because people had thrown objects into it.
From what I’ve read, it’s a pretty horrible way to die.
Yup. It’s called “Old Faithful,” not “Old On Schedule.”
I remember one story where a guy’s big dog jumped into a thermal pool. The dog was obviously in distress. So he jumped in to save the dog.
Him and the dog both got out. He made some comment to the effect " I really screwed up didnt I ?"
Yep, he did, both died a few days later.
On a funnier note, I couldnt help but recall a recent commercial where a park ranger looking guy is obviously worried that old faithful isnt on time. Next thing you know, he is sneaking out there with a bottle of Metimucil or some other high fiber substance 
Safety issues aside, it is probably not unreasonable for park employees to expect to be fired for urinating on the national landmarks.
Of what?
Reading this thread makes me realize that I could fill volumes with what I don’t know about geysers.
Except some kids who were too young to know better (as well as just plain idiots) might think the skeleton was cool, and walk toward it.
He was presumably scalded very badly, since the water was around 200 degrees, much hotter than the hot water that comes out of the tap in most homes. He was probably also burned over most of his body. The water temperature around the vent in Old Faithful is around that temperature.
Human laws might get you fired from your job for peeing in Old Faithful. The laws of thermodynamics are going to do something much worse to you if you fall in the hot water…
I don’t think it’s unreasonable at all.
Yikes.
At least he wasn’t feeling pain. A nurse here told me about a patient that came in with serious burns from head to toe. Apparently she begged for death, but it was a couple of hours before that happened. That has to be one of the worst ways to go.
About the man and dog who died a few days after jumping into a thermal pool…
They died of being boiled.
Now you know why it tastes like piss.
I got a second degree burn over a couple square inches of my skin once.
To say it was unpleasant would be quite the understatement. Over most of my body? Yeah, relief by death would certainly cross my mind.