Chile - Geisers del Tatio

Thursday, 31 October 2019

Geyser basins are always fascinating places to visit. We left early in the morning to arrive at the Tatio geyser basin at sunrise. El Tatio is the third largest geothermal geyser field in the world (after Yellowstone and the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia). While lacking the really tall geysers that can be found in other places, El Tatio makes up for that with its mostly continuously-erupting geysers.

At an altitude of 14,400 ft, El Tatio geyser field is the highest in the word.

Over the years, the geyser field has attracted the interest of a few geothermal energy companies. As of today most of the efforts have been abandoned due to the challenges of working in a high, remote environment and a controversial environmental incident in 2009. However, the drilling that has been done has already altered the hydrology of the area with some geysers being reduced to hot springs and fumaroles. Currently, El Tatio has become a protected area and is under the administration of the local indigenous population.

The highest geyser reaches about 10 m (33 ft) in height.

The geyser field was quite crowded with tourists. Walkways through the basin were lined with rocks.

A small geyser erupts.

Most of the time mineral deposits were smooth because of the water flowing over them, but there were places where jagged crystals also appeared.

This geyser had a unique foamy appearance - very different from the other geysers and hot springs.

Another small geyser / hot spring.

Algae and bacteria give some of the hot springs interesting colors.

Deposits around the water source for a hot spring.

A classic geothermal hot spring. Water was flowing from this spring at a significant rate, but it did not bubble up like most of the other pools of hot water.