What is contained within the hot moisture clouds emitted by hot springs?
What is contained within the hot moisture clouds emitted by hot springs?
Obviously water but are there other molecules like sulfur et al?
Edit: also do hot springs stink cuzza sulfur?
What else there is will vary greatly depending on the geologic context of the hot spring. Along with water vapor there can be gasses such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen, hydrogen sulfide, helium, radium, argon, methane, and I'm sure many other things.
Mmmmm, radium…. …… ……… ………… ☠️
Radium GaGa
I thought the real danger of radium is that it decays to lead dust which then collects in basements and makes us stoopid.
Hot springs are the surface manifestation of subsurface groundwater being indirectly heated by geothermal heat, usually magma (magma is underground lava, lava is magma erupted at the surface). Environments where hot springs occur are associated with their eruptive counterparts called a geyser. Subsurface rock with fractures and wide pore space between grains are more conducive to the geostructual plumbing that characterize hot springs/geysers. More acidic and biologically active hot springs are called mudpots. The groundwater will reflect the environment it circulates in and can have wide range of dissolved ions. Once vaporized or brought to the surface groundwater and mobilize any number of compounds. Most geysers are coated in Geyserite, which is a hydrated silica mineral sourced from silica rich bedrock that groundwater interacts with. Some environments, called fumaroles, will have no circulating liquid water and will be dominated by volcanic vapor and groundwater steam. Fumaroles are the nasty ones because they tend to have vaporized hydrochloric acid and sulfur oxides in the steam. These emitted gases derive from cooling of complex magmas that contain sulfur, fluorine, hydrogen, and carbon.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge
There's a town in New Zealand called Rotorua and is famous for its hot pools and geysers. It definitely smells.
There are other places around New Zealand with natural hot water that doesn't smell.
I guess it varies?
The only hot spring I've been to didn't smell like sulfur, or anything really. Not sure what could be in the clouds without googling it
Depends on the spring, some don’t stink at all. One time I drank some boiled hot spring water and my farts were really copious and really sulfuric for 24 hours. I was kinda worried.