One of Yellowstone’s most active hydrothermal pools has exploded again, and the eruption was captured on video. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) recently shared footage of a mass of mud and water blasting out of Black Diamond Pool in Yellowstone National Park.
The “morning kablooey” happened just before 9:23 A.M. on December 20, according to the USGS.
“We got a nice, clear view of one of these dirty eruptions under bright blue skies with the surroundings covered in snow (ah, winter in Yellowstone!),” the USGS wrote on Facebook. “A great example of the style of activity that has been occurring at Black Diamond Pool over the past 19 months!”
Black Diamond Pool is a part of the Biscuit Basin region, which was the site of a violent explosion in July 2024. That blast obliterated a park boardwalk, ejecting rocks and mud hundreds of feet into the air. In the aftermath of the blast, cameras and other seismic and acoustic monitoring equipment were installed in the area to enable geologists to monitor hydrothermal activity more closely.
Biscuit Basin has been closed to park visitors ever since, both due to damage to park infrastructure from the 2024 explosion and the potential for injury in future eruptions.
“Ever since that time, dirty eruptions reaching up to 30 to 40 feet in height have occurred sporadically from the pool,” the USGS explained on Facebook.
While the USGS hasn’t filmed evidence of an eruption as big as the one from 2024, the new monitoring equipment has documented a number of smaller blasts in the year since, like this one from July.
Hydrothermal features like Black Diamond Pool essentially act as pressure cookers. The water beneath them is heated by magma until it becomes superheated, meaning it has reached a temperature above boiling, at which point it should convert from liquid to gas. But because it’s underground, in a confined, pressurized space, its boiling point is effectively higher.
Often this water rises through cracks in the ground, gently venting into steam. But if the geological plumbing is clogged, perhaps by silica minerals or rock debris, the pressure can build until the water explodes, vaporizing into steam and shooting boiling water, mud, rocks, and other debris into the air.
As Outside noted in our earlier coverage of the July blast, the Black Diamond Pool and Biscuit Basin webcam is publicly viewable on the USGS website. Although it records continuously, the publicly viewable footage isn’t live. Instead, time-stamped images are uploaded to the website every 15 minutes. Notable events like the December 20 explosion are flagged and often posted online.
Several other eruptions have occurred in the weeks leading up to the December event, yet went unseen, said the USGS. Previous blasts happened either at night or when the camera lens was obscured by ice or snow. Although researchers detected and recorded those events using seismic and acoustic equipment, this is the first clear video evidence of an eruption in recent weeks.
Not all of the park’s thermal features are firing as regularly as Black Diamond Pool. At least one prominent geyser is quieting down. In early December, the USGS reported that the world’s tallest active geyser, Steamboat, had fallen silent.
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