Fountain Paint Pot

This bubbling mud vat contains the mix needed to create a mudpot: heat, gases, rock, minerals, acid, water, and living microorganisms. Heat-loving thermophiles consume some gases and help convert them into sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay that mixes with water. Scientists study extreme habitats like this one to understand the limits of life, and what they learn on Earth helps in the search for life and evidence of its past existence elsewhere in the solar system. This huge mudpot, called Mammoth Paint Pots until 1927, changes with the seasons, spitting thin, sloppy mud in spring and, in drier conditions, oozing thick bubbles of mud and gas through cracks that burst and collapse into cone-shaped mounds.

Wyoming · United States