There are thousands of them in Wyoming. Some spout higher than the Empire State Building. They are so strong that they can generate electricity. Countries are famous because of them. Still don’t know what I am talking about? Geysers! How are these amazing landforms shaped? What are these amazing land forms anyway?
Water Spouts in the Ground
What do geysers look like? Well geysers look a little like volcanoes except they are a hole in the ground not a hole on the top of a mountain but they can have huge crater. And geysers spout water, not magma (lava). Geysers are holes in the ground, sometimes very big and sometimes very small. For example, Old Faithful(in Yellowstone National Park), the most famous geyser in the world, spouts about 33 meters high every 65 minutes.
The formation of geysers is not that complicated. Even though it takes a lot of time, once geysers are active, they can last for centuries until the heat source disappears. For a geyser to form you basically need an underwater plumbing system. How are you going to get that? Erosion. Erosion is the movement of the sediments. Water is the main agent of Erosion. So once the underwater chambers and paths are eroded and, water can get in there is one more thing. How do you think the water gets heated up? Volcanic activity! You need recent or present volcanic activity. That also answers why you have them on the edge of continental plates. What is a continental plate? A continental plate is a piece of the crust that is land. That’s why you call it a continental plate. What is the crust? The crust is the outer layer of the earth. The crust is broken into large pieces which are our continents. Who said that? Alfred Wegener. Who is that? He is the one who proposed the theory of continental drift which is the movement of the continents from the convection currents. The second reason is that most geysers are on the borders of the continents are so that water can get in from the oceanic plates. What is an oceanic plate? An oceanic plate is like a continental plate except that it is filled with water. So when the water gets into the chamber, the water gets heated up from the volcanic activity so the water at the bottom of the chamber turns into steam. The water gets in to so much pressure that it explodes.
A lot of animals live next to geysers. For example bison, deer, ducks, and fish and etc. You usually find geysers next to water source for example a hot spring, lake or even the ocean.
You find them there because there is water. When it is next to a hot spring half the work is done because the water is heated! Geysers are useful because they can produce electricity. So countries like New Zealand, They sometimes rely on electricity from the geysers.
Well, basically what will happen is that the heat sources of geysers will disappear and the geysers will deactivate because they have nothing to heat up the water. The most important thing for a geyser is the hot water because that is the only type of water that will explode.