Another geyser has appeared in the Kronotsky Reserve. Now there are 58 of them in the Valley of Geysers!

An intense natural gush of hot water appeared in the Kronotsky Reserve at the end of May last year. It is located 200 meters downstream of the Geysernaya River from the Bolshoy geyser. Bolshoy geyser is the representative one, it erupts every hour and serves as one of the main objects shown to tourists during excursions. Until now only geysers flowed in a cyclic mode in the Valley. Hot springs poured out water at a constant flow rate, but without spouting. A year later the unique spring turned into a geyser.

"The new geyser is located on a clay slope and has two gryphons. At first, the smaller fountain gushes from the lower gryphon for 4 minutes, then an eruption of water from the upper gryphon begins, which continues for 10-20 seconds. During this short period the lower one stops gushing. Then the cycle repeats," said Leonty Podstavin, state inspector of the Kronotsky State Reserve.

Scientists have found out that the fountain, which became a geyser, appeared at the end of May 2020. There was a boiling spring on this spot on the shore of Geysernoye Lake from 2007 to 2014. When a devastating mudflow broke through the dam in 2014, the spring disappeared. 

Aleksey Kiryukhin, a senior researcher at the Kronotsky Reserve, hydrogeologist, spoke about the reasons for such transformations over a relatively short geological period of 14 years:

"The boiling spring unloaded for 7 years (from 2007 to 2014) at the level of the surface of Geysernoye Lake due to water infiltration into the channels of flooded geysers. Then, when the water level of the lake dropped sharply by several meters after the mudflow in 2014, the source dried up. The existing pressure was no longer enough to carry the water to the former level. In 2020 the flood restored the process of unloading and the persistence of the outflow in the winter of 2021 indicates that the pressure in the hydrothermal system has increased significantly, regardless of seasonal floods. Therefore, we expect new surprises in the Valley of Geysers."

At the end of May 2018, the employees of the reserve observed the phenomenon of a newborn fountain of boiling water for the first time since the opening of the Valley of Geysers (07/25/1941). It happened during the period of flood which caused the rise of the water level in the Geysernaya River. On the river bed in the area of the former pulsating spring Malakhitovy Grot, which, after the 2007 landslide, was flooded with the waters of a new dammed lake, a stream of boiling water up to one and a half meters high suddenly gushed. This fountain stopped existing after the flood.