Forget Las Vegas or Area 51, Fly Geyser in Nevada offers much brighter and otherworldly sights at a much cheaper cost.
Ropelato Photography; EarthScapes/Getty ImagesFly Geyser near Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
In the middle of the Nevada desert, there are tall, jutting, brightly colored geysers that spew boiling water five feet into the air. Really. Though it might seem like the least likely place on Earth for these geological wonders to exist, Fly Geyser does, indeed, stand tall in the dry desert climate of northern Nevada.
Located on a 3,800-acre plot of land known as Fly Ranch, Fly Geyser is a remarkably beautiful sight, albeit a bit alien looking. But perhaps most interestingly of all, Fly Geyser and the two other geysers on Fly Ranch — The Wizard and Will’s Geyser — aren’t simple formations of nature. In fact, they likely wouldn’t have existed at all if not for a combination of human involvement and geothermal pressure.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Fly Ranch Geyser and how it came to be.
How Digging For A Well Led To Fly Geyser’s Formation
In 1916, residents of Fly Ranch, just north of Reno, seeking irrigation attempted to build themselves a well. They gave up, however, when they realized the water was far too hot — boiling, in fact.
According to the Reno Tahoe eNews, this is when the first geyser began to develop, but it wouldn’t be until 1964 that the main geyser would form in a similarly accidental fashion.
That year, a geothermal power company drilled its own test well at Fly Ranch, but apparently they failed to properly seal the hole off.
Dukas/Universal Images Group via Getty ImagesFly Geyser has a uniquely large amount of quartz, which typically only forms in geysers that are around 10,000 years old.
It’s unclear from reports whether this was because they simply left it open or if they didn’t plug it well enough, but regardless, boiling water soon burst from the well hole, starting the formation of calcium carbonate deposits.
Over the decades, these calcium carbonate deposits have continued to grow, eventually turning into the three massive, otherworldly mounds that now form the Fly Geyser.
For a time, though, access to Fly Geyser was limited — it sat on private land, and remained closed to the public for nearly two decades between the mid-1990s and 2016. That year, however, the land was acquired by the non-profit Burning Man Project, which has worked to revitalize the region and make it open to the public.
How The Burning Man Project Is Making It Safe To Visit Fly Geyser
Local public radio station KUNR reported on the geyser following its public reopening, with writer Bree Zender describing it as “the weirdest thing I’ve seen in my life — not just in geyser terms… The weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.”
By the time the public could visit Fly Geyser in 2016, the formation had grown to be about 25 or 30 feet tall, which only accentuated the strange, alien-like appearance of its multicolored mounds.
But making it safe and accessible hasn’t been an entirely straightforward task, especially considering that some pools of water at the ranch can reach 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
“You know, we need to be mindful of where we walk. We are going to be taking a lot of game trails,” said Burning Man’s Zac Cirivello. “Trails that already exist. We don’t want to carve new roads or seriously impair things.”
Christie Hemm Klok for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesFly Geyser was opened to the public in 2018 as the Burning Man Project continues to develop the site into a safe area for visitors.
Thankfully, public accessibility has also allowed researchers to study Fly Geyser — and they’ve made some fascinating discoveries.
One researcher, Carolina Muñoz Saez, told KUNR, “I took some water samples to analyze the origin of the water.”
Through this analysis, Muñoz Saez found that the inside of Fly Geyser is lined with a fair amount of quartz, which is more common in older geysers — that is, in geysers that are around 10,000 or so years old. Given that Fly Geyser is just over 60 years old, the formation of quartz in this instance is rather surprising.
But there’s a reason, of course, that the quartz formed. As Muñoz Saez explained, the region has “a really high amount of silica,” which, when combined with the heat of the water, makes quartz.
In addition to Fly Geyser, Fly Ranch has multiple smaller geysers, hot springs, and wetland, all of which make the region a unique challenge for the Burning Man Project.
“To me on a personal level, the geyser represents constant change,” Cirivello said. “It represents a sense of being literally connected deep into the earth. I wouldn’t have thought something like this could exist until I saw it. And so it begs the question, what else is possible that we haven’t necessarily considered?”
After learning about this odd man made wonder, check out Ireland’s most majestic attraction: the Cliffs of Moher. Or, for more geyser-related stories, see why scientists are having trouble learning why the world’s most powerful geyser won’t stop erupting.
