GREAT GUSHING GEYSERS!
A geyser shoots water like a fountain. But a geyser shoots steaming hot
water from a hole deep in the ground. Some geysers shoot water high into
the air. Others just bubble up from the ground. Some geysers may go off
several times in an hour. Others may be quiet for years.
Groups of geysers are found in different parts of the world. In the far
north, in Iceland, there’s a group of geysers about an hour’s drive from
the city of Reykjavik. It’s from one of the geysers in this group—the
Stori Geysir—that we get the word “geyser.” This word comes from the
Old Icelandic geysa, which means “to gush.”
Far to the south, on the other side of the world, there is another large
group of geysers in New Zealand. Both New Zealand and Iceland make
electricity with the steam from geysers and hot springs.
Perhaps the most famous geyser in the world is “Old Faithful, ‘ in
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. It is one of a group of about two
hundred active geysers. “Old Faithful” erupts for about four minutes
once every hour. And it has not missed once in the more than eighty
years people have kept track of it!
Children at Strokkur, Iceland, watch a geyser shoot hot water high into
tire air.
