Gallery: Probing Geysers in Yellowstone and Chile

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Geysers, which send steam and hot water hundreds of feet into the air, have long baffled scientists. So Michael Manga, a volcanologist at UC Berkeley, and his colleagues have spent years studying them in Chile and Yellowstone National Park. The following images, courtesy of Manga, are a few examples of their work. [Read the full story about these mysterious eruptions]

The grandfather geyser

El Tatio (the grandfather) geyser in the Andes Mountains of northern Chile. With over 80 active geysers, the El Tatio field is the world's third-largest field, after Yellowstone and Dolina Geizerov in Russia, according to a 2003 report in a Geological Society of America publication.

A field overflowing with steam

The El Tatio geyser field. There's a bus to the right for scale.

Instruments scattered across the geyser field

The El Tatio geyser field with an array of seismometers to record ground motion.

Fishing for data

Two scientists insert pressure and temperature sensors into Vega Rinconada, in El Tatio, Chile.

A geyser puffs steam

The team made measurements inside the El Cobreloa geyser in El Tatio for six days.

Retrieving the data

Carolina Munoz (lead author on the paper) retrieving sensors from Vega Rinconada.

Pouring over the data

Scientists check the pressure and temperature data in the field.

Lone Star team

The 2014 Lone Star team from the U.S. Geological Survey, University of California, Berkeley and University of Missouri.

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