Pretty Fly: Nevada's Accidental Geyser

Some wonders take millions of years and a whole lot of geology. This one took a drilling crew who forgot to close a well!

In 1964, a company went looking for hot water in the Nevada desert. They found it. What they didn't do was seal the well properly, and scalding water started shooting out of the ground, and, well, it never stopped!

A Mound Built One Drop at a Time

Every drop of that water carried dissolved minerals, and every drop left a little behind. Decade after decade, those minerals stacked up into mounds that now stand nearly 6 feet (1.8 m) tall.

Algae moved in and painted the whole thing in streaks of red, orange, and green, so what started as an industrial mistake now looks like something from another planet.

Believe It or Not!, water still sprays from the top today.

The Part Scientists Didn't Expect

Here's where it gets genuinely strange: quartz crystals are growing inside the mounds.

In a geyser, quartz usually needs thousands of years to form. Fly Geyser has had about sixty. Nobody planned that either.

Get Wired Into Weird

Fly Geyser is one of hundreds of stories inside, alongside artists who sculpt with pennies, a suit made entirely of cork, and a guitar built from a fish.

Ripley's brand-new annual book is available for pre-order now . Get your copy before it hits shelves this fall, and find out what else made the cut.