As you know from my previous blog, we spent some time in the Atacama Desert and while we were there, we decided to visit the Tatio Geysers. They are located 120 km east of the city of Calama near the Bolivian border and 98 km north of San Pedro de Atacama. They are the highest altitude geyser field in the world at an elevation of about 4,300 metres above sea level. There are over 80 active geysers and is the third-largest geyser field on the planet after Yellowstone in the USA and Dolina Geizerov in Russia. There are only five countries in the world that have true geysers: New Zealand, Chile, Russia, Iceland and the United States, so they are pretty special.

At 4,300 metres, the boiling point of water is 85o Celsius because of the atmospheric pressure at this elevation. The average height these geysers reach into the air is 35 metres. It is better to see them in the morning from 6 to 7:30 due to the temperature differences and the early morning sun's illumination can enhance the steam plume and their visually strikingness.

As I didn’t know much about geysers, I asked myself, how are geysers created? Here are some things I found out through my research. Where geysers are located, there needs to be an underground reservoir of water joined to a natural plumbing system. The layer of rock that separates the magma from the underground water is thin enough where the geysers occur, that the heat can reach through the rock to the water – the hot rock acts like a stove top boiling the water above it. This boiling hot water and steam expands rushing up through the rock to the surface, where it bursts into the air as a geyser.

Another way of thinking about it is that geysers are like a boiling kettle with no off switch. They will never stop boiling unless they get cool enough or run out of water.

Geysers also only form in areas with high volcanic activity and on the edges of tectonic plates because the magma needs to be closer to the earth’s surface. The magma in these areas can range from 2 to 10 km beneath the surface. Unlike Australia where the magma is not that close to the surface it ranges from 25 to 50 km or in some areas none.

Below are some photos I took at the geysers.