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Abyss Pool

Emerald Blue-Green Pool at West Thumb

Hot Spring in Lower Group, West Thumb Geyser Basin on Yellowstone Lake on West Thumb Geyser Basin Trail in Yellowstone NP, Rocky Mountains near Grant Village, WY

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Geographic Name Origin

Named by the National Park Service after Lt. Gustavus C. Doane’s 1870 field note describing hot springs in the West Thumb Geyser Basin during the Washburn Langford Doane Expedition.

Near by are two more bluestone springs, the largest we have yet seen; one, 30 by 40 feet and of temperature 173°, flows a stream into the other one about 70 feet distant, and 6 feet lower; this latter spring is 40 by 75 feet, temperature 183°; a stream of 100 inches of water flows from it. The craters of these springs are of calcareous stalagmite, and lined with a silvery white deposit which illuminates, by reflection, the interior to an immense depth; both craters have perpendicular but irregular walls, and the distance to which objects are visible down in their deep abysses is truly wonderful. No figure of imagination, no description of enchantment, can equal in imagery the vista of these great basins.

— Doane on September 13, 1870, p 24-25

Sources

Doane, Gustavus Cheyney. Letter from the Secretary of War, Communicating the Report of Lieutenant Gustavus C. Doane upon the so-Called Yellowstone Expedition of 1870. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1873. http://archive.org/details/letterfromsecret1873unit.

Whittlesey, L.H. Yellowstone Place Names. Second. Wonderland Publishing Company, 2006.