Featured Image Credit: Facebook/ColinScott / MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images
Topics: News, World News, US News, Environment
Kit Roberts
Topics: News, World News, US News, Environment
Rangers were unable to recover the body of a man who fell into a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.
Colin Scott had been looking to go 'hot potting' in the US national park, which is famous for its volcanic springs.
While Yellowstone is a place of incredible natural beauty it is also very dangerous if you are not careful.
The area is known for its volcanic pools, where magma beneath the surface comes close enough to heat up the water and imbue it with lots of chemicals from deep beneath the earth's surface.
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One of the largest magma chambers in the world is actually located beneath the park and results in spectacular geographical features.
And while there are volcanically heated pools where you can swim and which are even good for you, for example in Iceland, this is not something that you should ever do in Yellowstone.
Tragically, 23-year-old Colin found this out the hard way when he went for a dip in one of the pools.
The 23-year-old had found a location to 'hot pot' - where you plunge into a hot spring for a moment and quickly get out.
Unfortunately, while he was checking the water temperature of a spring with his finger, he slipped and fell in.
He was unable to get out, and died in the pool.
When park rangers came to recover his body they couldn't immediately take it out of the water, and a thunderstorm forced them to come and recover him the following day.
When officials returned the next day, they found nothing remaining of Colin in the hot water, just his wallet and flip flops.
It is plausible that an animal had recovered the body and taken it, but officials suspected that it was something else.
So what did they think happened to the body?
Deputy Chief Ranger Lorant Veress noted in his report of the horrifying incident: "In a very short order, there was a significant amount of dissolving."
At their surface the geysers, ponds, and geothermal pools in Yellowstone have an average temperature of around 199F (93C).
This only gets hotter and hotter as you descend further down into the water as well.
There are not many kinds of living thing that could survive in an environment like that, but one is a group of single-celled organisms called archaea.
So unless you're this particular kind of microscopic life form, steer well clear.
According to Outforia, some 52 people have died in Yellowstone since 2010, though this is far fewer compared to the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, where 92 died.