Fly Geyser
Interesting facts
- Quartz is forming inside Fly Geyser remarkably fast thanks to its very silica-rich water, a process that usually takes up to 10,000 years in geysers.
- When the 1964 well began to vent, it released enough pressure that the original 1916 geyser nearby dried up.
- Another well drilled in 1917 had built a calcium carbonate pillar about 12 feet tall, which stopped flowing once Fly Geyser came to life.
- The geyser sprays water continuously, reaching about five feet into the air rather than erupting at intervals.
- Its overflow has built terraces holding some 30 to 40 travertine pools spread over about 74 acres.
- The red and green colours come from heat-loving bacteria and archaea, which thrive in the hot, mineral-heavy water.
- The heat source is a deep body of hot rock in a region of active tectonic rifting and faulting.
Why it is worth it
Fly Geyser exists because two different attempts to find something else both failed in useful ways. In 1916, a well drilled in the Black Rock Desert in search of irrigation water struck a pocket of geothermal heat instead, and a modest geyser began venting on the spot. Decades later, in 1964, a geothermal energy company drilled a second test well nearby hoping to find water hot enough to generate power; the water that came up wasn't quite hot enough for that purpose, but at over 200°F it was more than hot enough to keep flowing once the well was left improperly capped. Nothing about the geyser was designed — it's the unintended byproduct of two commercial failures, decades apart, on the same patch of desert.
Everything since has been genuinely natural. The escaping mineral-rich water has spent six decades depositing calcium carbonate, building the geyser's own travertine mound a few inches taller every year, and the vivid red and green streaks across its surface come from thermophilic algae that thrive in exactly the scalding, mineral-heavy micro-climate the accident created. It's a landmark that started as a mistake and has been quietly finishing itself, on its own schedule, ever since.
Good to know
Fly Geyser sits on private land at Fly Ranch, behind locked gates, and can't be visited on a whim. The Burning Man Project has owned the ranch since 2016 and, together with Friends of Nevada Black Rock High Rock, runs the only access — a handful of guided tours a year.
Getting there
139 km from Fernley. Reno Tahoe International Airport (RNO) is about 156 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Fly Geyser, also known as Fly Ranch Geyser, is a small geothermal geyser located on private land in Washoe County, Nevada, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Gerlach. Fly Geyser is located near the edge of Fly Reservoir in the Hualapai Geothermal Flats and is approximately 5 feet (1.5 m) high by 12 feet (3.7 m) wide, counting the mound on which it sits.
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