Yellowstone's thermal pool ‘Morning Glory’ has turned multi-hued from pristine blue. Here's why

The most beautiful thermal pool of Yellowstone - Morning Glory - has gone through a drastic colour change from pristine blue to multi-hued colours, and the tourists are being blamed for this.

As per the officials, the reason behind this colour change is the accumulation of coins and trash in the pool, The New York Post reported.

The Morning Glory Pool, which is near the famous “Old Faithful” geyser, is a famous tourist attraction in Yellowstone National Park's Upper Geyser Basin.

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“There are some lovely quotes about its beauty and stunning blue colours, and likening it to the Morning Glory flower,” said Yellowstone National Park historian Alicia Murphy, while speaking to The New York Post.

However, the early visitors were not worried about the environment and did not practice the stringent “leave no trace” policy, as instructed by the park officials.

Pool turns into a wishing well

The tourists were treating the blue pool as a wishing well and throwing coins, handkerchiefs, and other things inside.

“People didn’t understand the plumbing and how geysers worked. There were lots of ideas about, ‘If we throw something into this pool, we might be able to make it erupt'," Murphy said.

These items deteriorated the natural beauty of the pool and turned its deep-blue water into a mix of greens, yellows, blues, and oranges.

“I think there was some trial and error and a misunderstanding of the damage they were doing,” she said.

“Wishing wells are a time-honoured tradition. Flip a coin into a wishing well and make a wish. There is something about a pool of water that gives humans a weird instinct to throw things into it," she added.

Scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Mike Poland, said that the changing temperature of the thermal pool is a major reason for its change in colour.

“Temperature is a huge factor. Hotter pools tend to be a brilliant blue, and cooler pools can be more colourful since bacteria can grow there," he said.

“At Morning Glory, the temperature cooled because people throwing objects in caused the conduit to become partially blocked, and the temperature went down, allowing different types of bacteria to grow," Poland said.

How the pools were cleaned earlier?

Former Yellowstone ranger Jeff Henry said the pools of the National Park Service at one time went through regular cleanups.

“A guy was hooked up to a climbing harness so that he wouldn’t fall into the pool, and he was out there with a long-handled net, fishing things out of the water far down into the crater of the pool," Henry said.

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In this process, hundreds of items were fished out from the pool.

“We found tons, probably thousands of coins. There were a lot of rocks that didn’t belong there, and I think we found some hats that probably had blown off people’s heads and landed in the pool. And they, wisely, didn’t try to retrieve them," Henry said.

“Cleaning of pools was done on a regular basis. But values change, and they don’t clean the pools anymore, at least with the frequency and at the scale that we did," he said.

(With inputs from agencies)