Fumaroles
Drag the handle to compare the two views. The orange dot marks the spring, in a frame about three quarters of a mile wide.
Fumaroles is the name on record, and the temperature matches: steam-vent heat, around boiling. This is Pershing County, Nevada, some thirty-four miles out from Lovelock, on open BLM land under the Stillwater Field Office. At that temperature this is something to look at, with no soaking involved.
The nearest road sits a tenth-mile off and the record gives it no name. Low, dry basin at around 3,600 feet: nine inches of precipitation plus a foot or so of winter snow. Public land, open access.
Cold months top the record's list. Short walk in. Scalding, near boiling. Keep well back from any vent or pool and do not test the water with a hand. Open BLM access. No campground on file.
Aircraft with laser scanners measured this ground to within inches. The scan strips out trees and buildings, leaving the bare shape of the land around Fumaroles.
- Setting
- Hillside
- The spring sits on a steep slope that climbs to the northwest.
- Highest ground nearby
- 521 ft above the spring
- Within a quarter mile, to the northwest
A slice through the ground from northwest to southeast, about 0.6 miles end to end.
Elevation data: USGS 3D Elevation Program. Aerial imagery: USGS The National Map. Public domain.
That's about twice the US average of 65. It's higher than at 69% of the springs on this site.
Heat flow measures the warmth working its way up through the ground from deep inside the earth. Where it runs high, rain and snowmelt that seep down through cracks in the rock come back up hot.
See every spring on the geothermal heat map →
Heat flow estimate: Stanford Thermal Earth Model (Aljubran & Horne, 2024), CC BY 4.0.