Photos Show the Beautiful “Fly Geyser” in Gerlach, Nevada-Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
Photos of a rock formation called the Fly Geyser in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert show one of the world’s most amazing places.
The Truth:
The Fly Geyser actually exists in Nevada’s Hualapai Valley, near the Black Rock Desert.
Nevada’s Fly Geyser was created accidentally during a test drill for geothermal well in 1964. Mineral buildup formed around three geysers at the site have created brightly colored “travertine spouts and terraces,” according to Friends of Black Rock High Rock.
Scalding water erupts from the geysers and leaves behind calcium carbonate deposits that have built up into vibrant green, red and yellow formations. Water pools on the flat terraces surrounding the formations, which makes it even more remarkable:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05_k2XFT6Cs
A photographer named Warren Willis, who took some of the iconic photos of Fly Geyser, described how he stumbled upon it in an interview with the Weather Channel:
About 20 miles northeast of the tiny town of Gerlach, Nev., lies one of the planet’s rarest oddities: a man-made geyser.
Only a handful of them have ever been “discovered” – like Oregon’s Old Perpetual and Geyser Park in Soda Springs, Idaho – which makes getting the chance to photograph one of them an opportunity that doesn’t come along every day.
That’s what attracted Warren Willis, a 68-year-old retired Navy officer, small business owner and amateur photographer who lives in Las Vegas and specializes in landscape photography, when he stumbled across Nevada’s Fly Geyser on the pages of National Geographic.
Willis said the geyser is on private property and fenced off to the public. A security guard stands watch at the gate, and he was allowed to photograph it on two occasions because a group paid a fee to its owners.