Location Taken: Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Time Taken: October 2012
Look, it’s a tree!
Isn’t it AMAZING?!?
No really, it is. See that oddly layered rock it’s growing on? That rock is created by the massive hot spring this tree is growing at the top of. It’s a rock that crumbles very quickly when it’s no longer being renewed. And as it crumbles, the thin layers that build up are revealed, which is rather interesting.
It would be really pretty if it didn’t get that brown-gray coating so fast that ruins the pristine white it starts as.
It seems to be a very fertile rock, at least. There were trees and other plants growing all over the inactive parts of the hot spring. They seem to do well with the extra heat coming off of the water as well.
So here you have the top of a massive hot spring, full of waters that steam in any weather and full of minerals that gather together into a rock that quickly erodes, and what do you find?
A tree. A pretty good sized one, too.
See, amazing.
