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Great Fountain Geyser

One of my favorite stops during my recent trip to Yellowstone NP was the Firehole Lake area. The Great Fountain Geyser is located in the Firehole Lake area of the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park. I captured this photo from the walkway on the south side of the Geyser. This is the best angle to view the Geyser as the bright orange colors in the foreground are the most visible. The orange coloration is created by thermophilic bacterium (Thermus aquaticus) and is prevalent throughout Yellowstone.  Unfortunately, the geyser fired off after I left this spot.

The Great Fountain Geyser is the only predictable geyser in the Lower Geyser Basin. It erupts every 9 to 15 hours. Its maximum height ranges from 75 feet to over 220 feet. The eruptions usually last about an hour but durations of over two hours have been observed. The duration affects the interval timing. If the duration of the eruption is recorded then the following eruption can be predicted to a precision of about two hours.

Firehole Basin - Great Fountain Geyser
Firehole Basin – Great Fountain Geyser

This image was taken with my Canon EOS 5DS using my Canon EF 16-35mm f/4 Lens set on 16 mm. The camera was set on Manual mode with the aperture set at f/20, shutter speed at 1/20th of a second and the ISO set at 100. I captured three bracketed images (-1, 0, +1) but did not need all three so I used the zero image and did the preliminary processing in Lightroom then completed the image in Photoshop using Nik Color Efex Pro.

You can access my new Yellowstone/Grand Teton collection by clicking here. I will continue to add images for this trip to the collection as I process them. Please use the section below to post your comments, questions or suggestions.

T. Kahler Photography
© 2016 T. Kahler Photography

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