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SYSK Selects: Geysers: Nature's Innuendo · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello there, Hello, Hello. It's me Josh, and this week's
0:05
Speaker 1: s Y s K Select is a little episode from
0:08
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve called Geysers Colon Nature's Innuendo. I thought
0:13
Speaker 1: of that title myself, and I still love it to
0:16
Speaker 1: this day, so I hope you enjoy it. It's one
0:19
Speaker 1: of those really cool Earth sciences bio geochemical ones that
0:23
Speaker 1: really get me jazzed, and I hope it gets you
0:25
Speaker 1: jazz too. Let's all get jazz. Welcome to Stuff You
0:31
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of My Heart Radios How Stuff Works,
0:40
Speaker 1: Good Bloom, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:44
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is Stuff
0:48
Speaker 1: you should Know. Yeah, just a couple of regular guys
0:53
Speaker 1: are sitting around chat. That was good. I know, I
0:57
Speaker 1: genuinely didn't think you were going to say, guys, really
1:01
Speaker 1: a little um. This was a pretty cool article. I
1:06
Speaker 1: thought I knew a lot about Geyser's, but I did
1:10
Speaker 1: not know exactly what was going on there. Yeah. In fact,
1:13
Speaker 1: I was wrong on a couple of key points. Oh really, yes,
1:16
Speaker 1: which I will not point out. Oh come on, well,
1:19
Speaker 1: I thought they spit out lemonade first of all. Uh,
1:23
Speaker 1: and I thought there was a little guy down there
1:25
Speaker 1: doing it. Oh got lepre cons Yeah, yeah, that's what
1:28
Speaker 1: everybody thinks. I was wrong on both of those points.
1:31
Speaker 1: Do we have a geyser myth sound effect? I don't
1:33
Speaker 1: think so. Um does this count as weather? Now? This
1:38
Speaker 1: is earth science, biogeochemical processes. Okay, I just know what
1:42
Speaker 1: you're trying to be beef up our weather. Uh. This
1:45
Speaker 1: is not whether it's not weather, although it does begin
1:48
Speaker 1: with weather. Yeah, I mean when something precipitates, that's weather,
1:52
Speaker 1: and precipitation precipitates the explosion of a geyser, that's right.
1:58
Speaker 1: Uh chuck, Yes, I have no guys are introduction. Man,
2:02
Speaker 1: you can't blame me though, Like I looked, and there
2:05
Speaker 1: is really not a lot going on on geysers. I
2:08
Speaker 1: thought you might tell the story about the people in
2:09
Speaker 1: nineteen o three. He was going to, but I didn't
2:11
Speaker 1: want to just usurp it. Okay, but let's do that though,
2:14
Speaker 1: since you brought it up, Because I mean I thought
2:15
Speaker 1: about that too, I was like, whoa hang back, Josh
2:18
Speaker 1: hanging back? Well, apparently guysers can kill you. Um, and
2:22
Speaker 1: you know when you see something like old faithful go off.
2:24
Speaker 1: That's why you're three ft away watching it. Yeah, you
2:27
Speaker 1: know you're not gonna be on top of the thing.
2:28
Speaker 1: But apparently in nineteen o three in New Zealand, which
2:32
Speaker 1: is allowsy with geysers, um, some tourists visiting there got
2:36
Speaker 1: caught in a jet at uh wy man Wymani valley
2:42
Speaker 1: nice good and uh it killed all four people and
2:45
Speaker 1: carried them more than a mile away. Yes, that is sad.
2:49
Speaker 1: And after after we explain how guysers work, I think
2:53
Speaker 1: that will well we should mention that again because once
2:56
Speaker 1: I understood how guysers worked and I read that, I
2:59
Speaker 1: was like, those people met a terrible, terrible demise, like
3:03
Speaker 1: they that was terrible way to go. Yeah, I mean,
3:06
Speaker 1: it's tantamount to getting thrown into a volcano or caught
3:10
Speaker 1: in dropping into the cracks of an earthquake, and they're
3:13
Speaker 1: all kind of related, as it turns out, or being
3:15
Speaker 1: blood into death, which is not related. No, but it's
3:19
Speaker 1: pretty bad way to go to the geothermal earth properties.
3:22
Speaker 1: So um chuck geysers, as I learned UM from reading
3:26
Speaker 1: this article on how stuff works dot com um our
3:29
Speaker 1: beloved site, UM, are actually kind of fragile and there's
3:33
Speaker 1: not that many this this article, there's a thousand guysers
3:38
Speaker 1: roughly in in the world. And um, I read elsewhere
3:41
Speaker 1: that there's only about fifty geyser fields on the planet,
3:45
Speaker 1: and about two thirds of those have five or fewer guysers,
3:49
Speaker 1: which makes yellow Stone a pretty substantial repository of geyser
3:55
Speaker 1: and guys are related activity. Because when you're talking guyser,
4:00
Speaker 1: you you you don't ever just talk guys or you're
4:02
Speaker 1: also talking um fumer roles. You're talking hot springs, mud pots,
4:09
Speaker 1: steam vents, and all of them are based around the
4:12
Speaker 1: same thing, which is there's some sort of geo thermal
4:15
Speaker 1: activity that's relatively close to the Earth's surface, right, Um.
4:21
Speaker 1: And there's three components to a geyser um and they
4:26
Speaker 1: are water supply, plumbing system, and heat source. Yeah, and
4:29
Speaker 1: I'm gonna argue with fourth later on later though, I
4:34
Speaker 1: have to wait. I'm gonna call it. We'll just go
4:37
Speaker 1: ahead and say what it is, which is a remoteness,
4:40
Speaker 1: all right, and then we'll we'll circle back because detached
4:43
Speaker 1: from its family, right, it comes very remote. So a
4:48
Speaker 1: water supply, let's start there, because if you ain't got water,
4:51
Speaker 1: you ain't got no guyser. Yeah, and I saw in
4:54
Speaker 1: this article that um rivers can often um form the
4:59
Speaker 1: water or supply. I didn't. I didn't see that elsewhere.
5:03
Speaker 1: For the most part, from what I from what I
5:05
Speaker 1: can gather is that the water supply is um precipitation,
5:10
Speaker 1: rain and snow melt percolating through the Earth's crust over
5:13
Speaker 1: five thousand or so years, and then it trickles down
5:17
Speaker 1: to the point where it comes in contact with like
5:19
Speaker 1: we said, relatively shallow geothermal activity, usually very very young
5:25
Speaker 1: volcano volcano or volcanic activity, or very very old like
5:29
Speaker 1: on in the throes of death volcanic activity. Yeah. Um,
5:34
Speaker 1: and it can be anything from magma to um cool magma.
5:38
Speaker 1: But it's very hot rock and it's close enough to
5:40
Speaker 1: the surface that this water doesn't evaporate, it starts to
5:44
Speaker 1: trickle back up. Yeah. And when do you say close?
5:47
Speaker 1: Three miles down seems like a long way down. But
5:50
Speaker 1: if you're talking the planet Earth, it's nothing. That's pretty close. Yeah,
5:54
Speaker 1: if you're talking magma, it's pretty close. We're talking techtonic plates,
5:57
Speaker 1: it's pretty close. It's closer than you on it to
6:00
Speaker 1: be pale. It's a go ahead, okay, Number two of
6:05
Speaker 1: the plumbing system, right, very important. Um. The plumbing system
6:09
Speaker 1: is a series of fissures that run miles beneath the surface.
6:13
Speaker 1: And one important aspect of these fissures is they're basically
6:18
Speaker 1: sealed shut with silica from rhyolite. It's volcanic rock, um
6:24
Speaker 1: and like these minerals have sealed this rock shut. Right, So,
6:28
Speaker 1: like really important part of it. That water that's percolating down,
6:31
Speaker 1: when it heats up and starts to travel back up,
6:33
Speaker 1: it takes that silica that rhyolite with it, and then
6:37
Speaker 1: it just kind of acts as a ceiling along these
6:39
Speaker 1: pipes over five hundred thousand years, however long it takes
6:42
Speaker 1: for it to go back up. It's it's ceiling and
6:45
Speaker 1: it's making it water tight. Well yeah, and I imagine
6:48
Speaker 1: I didn't read this, but I imagine that this kind
6:50
Speaker 1: of activity happens elsewhere on the planet, but it's not
6:53
Speaker 1: sealed up, so it just disperses, right. Yeah. Because one
6:58
Speaker 1: of the key ingredients of a guy's or is pressure,
7:00
Speaker 1: high pressure, that's right. And to get that pressure in
7:04
Speaker 1: these pipes, you have to have ryolite coated sealed pipes.
7:08
Speaker 1: That's right. Okay, so there's the plumbing system and it
7:10
Speaker 1: can the plumbing system varies. All guysers are different. Sometimes
7:13
Speaker 1: it's just like a huge, long vertical chaft. Sometimes it
7:17
Speaker 1: binds and turns and winds around. Okay, so this is
7:19
Speaker 1: this is something that actually differentiates guys are from a
7:22
Speaker 1: hot spring. So a hot spring is just like a
7:24
Speaker 1: like a long vertical chaft coming from hot water um
7:29
Speaker 1: up to the top, but there's no obstruction. What makes
7:32
Speaker 1: the guys or a geyser is the fact that there's
7:35
Speaker 1: an obstruction in the plumbing right where the hot spring
7:37
Speaker 1: water can just move freely up and down. There's there's
7:40
Speaker 1: just free exchange and you soak around in it like
7:43
Speaker 1: a big lazy wall rush. But there's no pressure. With
7:46
Speaker 1: the guys are, there's some sort of obstruction where either say,
7:50
Speaker 1: the water on its way back up and there's this
7:52
Speaker 1: wide pool that bottlenecks at the top, so now you
7:55
Speaker 1: have pressure. There's a bunch of different pipes feeding into
7:59
Speaker 1: one pipe and they all connect to the same place
8:01
Speaker 1: another bottleneck or this this pipe of water is so
8:07
Speaker 1: wide and so deep that the pressure from the water
8:12
Speaker 1: above the water at the bottom is so tremendous that
8:15
Speaker 1: for all intensive purposes, it creates a bottleneck just strictly
8:18
Speaker 1: out of pressure without an actual obstruction. Yeah. Just the
8:21
Speaker 1: weight of the water itself is so great. So we
8:24
Speaker 1: have a water supply and a plumbing um system that
8:27
Speaker 1: is sealed with rhyolite which makes it water tight and pressurized,
8:32
Speaker 1: and then some sort of means for pressure to build. Yeah,
8:36
Speaker 1: and uh, I guess we can go ahead and liking
8:38
Speaker 1: it to a pressure cooker now, so you understand we're
8:40
Speaker 1: talking about if you've ever cooked with a pressure cooker
8:42
Speaker 1: at home, or if you've ever eaten it Chick fil
8:44
Speaker 1: A and eating their delicious pressure fried chicken. Is that
8:48
Speaker 1: how they do it? Oh yeah, let's explain pressure. So
8:52
Speaker 1: that's why there so juicy man um. So water is
8:55
Speaker 1: standard water is just gonna boil it like a hundred
8:58
Speaker 1: degrees celsius in the fancy French water. Um, if you're
9:03
Speaker 1: if you're cooking with a pressure cooker, which means you know,
9:06
Speaker 1: the littue sealed shut it lets out some steam or
9:08
Speaker 1: else it would explode obviously, Um, it will actually take
9:13
Speaker 1: a lot more energy to boil and bubble up, which
9:16
Speaker 1: means more heat and so you can actually cook in
9:19
Speaker 1: a pressure cooker at like twenty five degrees, right, because
9:22
Speaker 1: it's just substantial for under that pressure. It takes a
9:26
Speaker 1: lot more for what it was boiling water. But it's
9:28
Speaker 1: like air bubbles forming and rising to the top. When
9:32
Speaker 1: the pressure is too great, it can't boil. So the
9:34
Speaker 1: boiling point rises, right, Well, it boils, but it won't
9:37
Speaker 1: it can't evaporate. Well, no, it can't. It can't form
9:40
Speaker 1: the bubbles that carry to the top, so it can't
9:42
Speaker 1: actually boil. So it's just sitting there in this high
9:44
Speaker 1: pressure environment at high higher than boiling point temperatures, and
9:49
Speaker 1: the same things going on in a geyser. Right, You've
9:52
Speaker 1: got the obstruction, you've got this heated water, and you
9:55
Speaker 1: have a tremendous amount of pressure because again we're talking
9:58
Speaker 1: about miles deep, um, and there's that's quite a bit
10:03
Speaker 1: of pressure at the bottom the water at the bottom,
10:05
Speaker 1: and it's getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Yeah, like, um,
10:11
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it depends. But for guys are
10:14
Speaker 1: to form and start, they think the oldest one is
10:17
Speaker 1: between five thousand and forty years old. So yeah, so
10:21
Speaker 1: it takes a little while because you know, the plumbing
10:23
Speaker 1: has to has to steal up and everything. But as
10:26
Speaker 1: that pressure builds and then that heat um increases, you
10:31
Speaker 1: can reach temperatures of like four or five degrees fahrenheit
10:35
Speaker 1: of this water and it's still not boiling, right, that's right.
10:39
Speaker 1: And then eventually it does boil. It overcomes that pressure threshold. Well,
10:43
Speaker 1: it finds its way through to to the escape route,
10:47
Speaker 1: which is the top of the surface, and it'll just
10:51
Speaker 1: and that's not the eruption, it'll just scored a little
10:53
Speaker 1: bit of water out. You'll go and think, wow, that
10:56
Speaker 1: was a big relief, and such a big relief that, uh,
11:00
Speaker 1: the steam all of a sudden expands to fundred times
11:04
Speaker 1: the volume of the water. It's like if you're ever boiling,
11:07
Speaker 1: uh you ever steam vegetables in your house. The best
11:10
Speaker 1: way to steam vegetables is you don't just set it
11:12
Speaker 1: on a massive boil and cover it up. You get
11:15
Speaker 1: it to that massive boil and then you turn that
11:17
Speaker 1: heat down low, and all of a sudden, that pressure
11:20
Speaker 1: drop creates like massive amounts of steam. Right. And the
11:23
Speaker 1: reason why is because when you increase pressure, you increase
11:27
Speaker 1: the temperature. That's the boiling point of water. If suddenly
11:30
Speaker 1: you have that temperature still, but the pressure decreases that
11:34
Speaker 1: that water and this guys are just flash vaporizes. And
11:38
Speaker 1: because there's a lot more volume to an equal amount
11:41
Speaker 1: of water and steam, that steam, like you said, expands
11:44
Speaker 1: to what times of volume? Yeah, and there's your guys
11:48
Speaker 1: are how Yeah, it's that's all of a sudden, all
11:51
Speaker 1: the steam in the water just gets shot out. Depending
11:54
Speaker 1: on what kind of guys are it is, it's going
11:56
Speaker 1: to take different formations and be different heights and last
12:00
Speaker 1: different amounts of time. But um, it'll keep going until
12:04
Speaker 1: it either runs out of water or it cools down
12:07
Speaker 1: enough for it just start all over again. Yeah, and
12:31
Speaker 1: then it just starts all over again, which is how
12:33
Speaker 1: you get something like Old Faithful. All right, that's right.
12:36
Speaker 1: Once it once it releases that um that pressure and
12:39
Speaker 1: it shoots out, it's the whole process just begins again,
12:43
Speaker 1: and you have, um, guys are's like Old Faithful that
12:46
Speaker 1: erupt like on a pretty regular schedule. I think it's
12:49
Speaker 1: between like sixty and eighty five minutes or something like that. Well,
12:52
Speaker 1: I've got the new schedule schedule because it's been it's
12:56
Speaker 1: been happening with greater with less frequency in greater power
13:01
Speaker 1: in recent years, I think it's said since two thousand
13:05
Speaker 1: UM and it's a bimodal. They call it bimodal. And
13:08
Speaker 1: if you're going to Old Faithful in Wyoming, Um there
13:11
Speaker 1: are generally two eruption durations now, either a long one
13:15
Speaker 1: which is over four minutes, or a short one, which
13:17
Speaker 1: is about two and a half minutes. And if you
13:20
Speaker 1: have just missed the short one, there'll be about an
13:23
Speaker 1: hour before your next eruption. If you have just missed
13:26
Speaker 1: the long one, then there's gonna be about an hour
13:29
Speaker 1: and a half until the next one. But either way,
13:31
Speaker 1: it's it's worth sticking around for it. Yeah, And it's
13:33
Speaker 1: funny if you go to the page and there's obviously
13:36
Speaker 1: a webcam up where you can see it and stuff,
13:38
Speaker 1: but that's not as fun. But if you go to
13:40
Speaker 1: the web page and they ask for tips on you know,
13:42
Speaker 1: seeing it, they say, well, if there's a lot of
13:45
Speaker 1: people sitting around on the benches, that means there's one upcoming.
13:49
Speaker 1: If there's a bunch of people getting up and leaving,
13:51
Speaker 1: that means it just happened. It's like, wow, really, yeah,
13:54
Speaker 1: that's the best you can do. That sounds like um,
13:56
Speaker 1: like hippie park ranger logic exactly like um. Okay, so,
14:01
Speaker 1: uh well, I guess we're onto like famous geysers, right, yeah,
14:05
Speaker 1: Actually quickly I mentioned I teased about the fourth um
14:08
Speaker 1: thing remoteness. Apparently, in the last fifty years, uh, producing
14:14
Speaker 1: energy with geo thermal energy production has increased so much
14:19
Speaker 1: that it's affecting geysers, and so being remote is now
14:23
Speaker 1: believed to be one of the requirements to be a geyser,
14:25
Speaker 1: because geysers are vanishing because of man. Because so I
14:29
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out this out, maybe you can
14:31
Speaker 1: help me. That's because we dig down to these this
14:36
Speaker 1: this um, these geysers of this geo thermal activity, and
14:39
Speaker 1: in doing so, are we creating like a release valve
14:43
Speaker 1: so the pressure camp build as much I think so.
14:45
Speaker 1: I mean they're using it to spind turbines to create energy.
14:48
Speaker 1: But I know you can also have like a geo
14:50
Speaker 1: thermal system in your backyard, which I don't think uses
14:54
Speaker 1: I don't think it like creates steam. So I feel
14:57
Speaker 1: like what we're doing then is creating artificial geysers, like
15:00
Speaker 1: eating an artificial pipe to let steam out, which would
15:03
Speaker 1: impact any natural guys activity. I because like we said,
15:06
Speaker 1: they're very fragile. Earthquakes frequently um cut them off. They
15:11
Speaker 1: also bring them back to life too. Yeah, that's true.
15:14
Speaker 1: Like there was one called the Stroker Geyser that that
15:18
Speaker 1: would be str o k K you are, yeah, and
15:21
Speaker 1: that's stroker like stroker race right right. So Stroker geyser
15:25
Speaker 1: um is after the Icelandic well, Stroker is after the
15:28
Speaker 1: Icelandic verb to churn, and actually geyser's after the Icelandic
15:32
Speaker 1: verb um to gush. So this is all very Icelandic
15:37
Speaker 1: in origin. But that would be g e y s
15:40
Speaker 1: i R geyser okay in Icelandic. Sure, I own how
15:46
Speaker 1: Buyork pronounces guyser. Have you seen Kristen Wiggs impression of her?
15:50
Speaker 1: Huh that's really great? Um okay, So the Stroker Geyser
15:54
Speaker 1: was actually um it was enacted in nine um because
16:00
Speaker 1: of an earthquake, and then another earthquake hit in and
16:05
Speaker 1: it became inactive. It went dormant and the local said,
16:09
Speaker 1: we got to get our guys are back, man, it's
16:10
Speaker 1: all blocked up. So they cleared it off and now
16:13
Speaker 1: it's running again. I bet that was probably dangerous work
16:16
Speaker 1: dangerous um. Another way to that humans are impacting is
16:21
Speaker 1: a mineral extraction. Apparently in two thousand three, Uh, they
16:26
Speaker 1: were extracting minerals in Chile, the second largest geyser field
16:32
Speaker 1: in South America, and it killed it basically from extracting
16:37
Speaker 1: golden stuff. Because basically they mess with the plumbing and
16:41
Speaker 1: then you're finished. Because it's like you said, like, um,
16:44
Speaker 1: in a pressure cooker has that little steam val so
16:47
Speaker 1: it doesn't explode. The guys aren't supposed to have that, right.
16:51
Speaker 1: If they have that, they just don't go off. They're like, well, fine,
16:53
Speaker 1: I'll just let some steam off and um, um, that
16:57
Speaker 1: does happen. Naturally, there are steam it's located near geysers.
17:02
Speaker 1: Um like yellow stones. Like we have ten thousand um
17:05
Speaker 1: geo thermal um what is the word they use, Uh,
17:11
Speaker 1: basically different things. We have ten thousands of your thermal
17:14
Speaker 1: different things. Um. But the vast majority of those are
17:17
Speaker 1: like steam vents. Oh they're man made. No, they're they're natural. Like. Oh,
17:21
Speaker 1: they're like little steam releases that come up through fissures.
17:25
Speaker 1: Okay in the earth. I thought you meant we put
17:27
Speaker 1: those in to make old faithful like safers. No, they
17:30
Speaker 1: happen naturally. Um, but I think it's the same thing
17:33
Speaker 1: as drilling a hole down to a geothermal um different
17:36
Speaker 1: thing and uh and tapping it to run a turbine. Okay,
17:42
Speaker 1: at least you didn't say interesting. Interesting, man, this stuff
17:46
Speaker 1: is very interesting. Um, old Faithful is a cone geyser?
17:50
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I understand the difference? Is it the
17:52
Speaker 1: is it the good difference? Is it the outlet like
17:55
Speaker 1: the shape of the thing above the earth. Yeah, So
17:57
Speaker 1: with the cone guys or, the rhyolite bubbles up and
18:00
Speaker 1: enough over time that it builds up and it forms
18:02
Speaker 1: a little cone and that's what the guys are shoots
18:04
Speaker 1: out of. And normally with the cone guys or you
18:06
Speaker 1: have a big stream going jet going into the air
18:10
Speaker 1: like hundreds of feet. That one in um in uh
18:14
Speaker 1: New Zealand, the Wyman ge geyser. Um, that one streamed
18:20
Speaker 1: seventy ft into the air and for those of you
18:23
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, that's four hundred fifty that's a world record, right, yeah,
18:28
Speaker 1: nineteen oh two, Yeah, before it killed people, right, and
18:32
Speaker 1: then it went dormant in nineteen o four because of
18:34
Speaker 1: a landslide, which makes me think like this thing's coming back.
18:38
Speaker 1: I just gotta bubble back up and then shut down
18:41
Speaker 1: right afterwards. Yeah, it's really had a really chaotic to
18:45
Speaker 1: your career. It's like a rock star that overdosed on
18:48
Speaker 1: heroin or something. Um. But anyway, as I was saying, um,
18:52
Speaker 1: the cone shoots a jet into the air. The fountain, Um,
18:57
Speaker 1: it shoots in a much more like chaotic streme whatever.
19:00
Speaker 1: But it doesn't come up from a cone. It comes
19:01
Speaker 1: up from a pool. So at the surface, the geyser
19:05
Speaker 1: goes into a pool of water and then that will
19:09
Speaker 1: erupt out of the water, and that would be the
19:11
Speaker 1: grand geyser. Um, the tall that's the tallest regularly erupting
19:16
Speaker 1: guys are on the planet. And that is also a yellowstone. Yeah,
19:19
Speaker 1: the tallest in that it shoots up in the air. Yeah,
19:21
Speaker 1: two hundred feet in crazy fountain e hard to predict fashion. Yeah,
19:27
Speaker 1: which is pretty surprising too, because the cone geyser shoots
19:30
Speaker 1: a jet straight up in the air, and this fountain
19:33
Speaker 1: geyser is still beating the average one. Yeah. Could you
19:36
Speaker 1: imagine if it was a cone geyser, it would be
19:39
Speaker 1: mind blowing to the moon. Uh. You mentioned the stroker
19:43
Speaker 1: ace geyser the steamboat guys are. Yeah, apparently can choo
19:47
Speaker 1: water up to three hundred feet, but don't bother stopping
19:51
Speaker 1: by because it hasn't happened for fifty years. It can
19:54
Speaker 1: go fifty years between. It's finicky. Yeah. Um there's also
19:58
Speaker 1: the geyser. We to the o G geyser because that's
20:02
Speaker 1: where the word came from. It's a geyser in Iceland.
20:05
Speaker 1: It was discovered in um so it's the oldest known
20:10
Speaker 1: guys are on the planet. But they took some samples
20:12
Speaker 1: of the silica that forms the cone of the castle
20:15
Speaker 1: guys are in Yellowstone. That's the one they think is
20:18
Speaker 1: five thousand to forty thousand years old. Apparently silicon dating
20:24
Speaker 1: can use some work. I did see one interesting little
20:28
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a joke. It was almost like you
20:31
Speaker 1: could hear science guys laughing about it. Though. You geysers
20:34
Speaker 1: are always called geysers, even if they quit erupting, but
20:39
Speaker 1: that ceased to make seats to be a geyser at
20:42
Speaker 1: that point. But once you have erupted, you're always called
20:45
Speaker 1: a geyser. The cone formerly known as geyser. Yeah, that's
20:49
Speaker 1: what I would call it. Shameful, uh, let's do you
21:16
Speaker 1: know that whole story about Prince doing that about changing
21:20
Speaker 1: his name. No, I never knew the story behind it.
21:23
Speaker 1: So he was locked in a contract with Sony that
21:25
Speaker 1: he didn't like, and Sony basically said, you can't release
21:30
Speaker 1: an album as Prince. Yes. And but also that had
21:33
Speaker 1: something to do with him acting basically crazy, like he
21:36
Speaker 1: acted crazy on purpose to get out of his contract
21:39
Speaker 1: because there was some sort of clause where like if
21:41
Speaker 1: he was if he went nuts or whatever, it would
21:43
Speaker 1: avoid his contract. So he did that, and he had
21:45
Speaker 1: that font release and I remember he released it to
21:48
Speaker 1: the media like, um, his little symbol yes to as
21:52
Speaker 1: like a font add on so you could just print
21:55
Speaker 1: the symbol when you were writing about him. And his
21:58
Speaker 1: contract with Sony was either avoided they gave it up
22:01
Speaker 1: or whatever. But he was basically like, I'll show you
22:03
Speaker 1: crazy if I need to get out of this contract. Boy.
22:06
Speaker 1: One of the best concerts I've ever seen. Oh yeah,
22:09
Speaker 1: I'll bet. And I don't even think I put it
22:10
Speaker 1: in my top five when we had that listener mail
22:13
Speaker 1: that time, but probably forgot. It's probably in my top five.
22:16
Speaker 1: I would like to see print sometimes he brings it
22:19
Speaker 1: he um, he bought you me a bottle of water
22:21
Speaker 1: at um a Miles Davis show at the Cotton Club.
22:24
Speaker 1: Really wow. Her friends came up to see the lemon
22:27
Speaker 1: Heads and she's like, yeah, I'll go with you, and
22:29
Speaker 1: then found out that Miles Davis was playing. It's like,
22:31
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go over here, bottle of water, Evan Dando,
22:36
Speaker 1: Miles Davis exactly. Let me think about that. Sorry, e
22:40
Speaker 1: d um So that's uh, that's print. Oh yeah, and guys,
22:46
Speaker 1: oh yeah, guys are too. Um. If you want to
22:48
Speaker 1: learn more about guysers, you can type that word g
22:51
Speaker 1: E Y S E r S. That's the English spelling.
22:54
Speaker 1: We didn't do it icelandically. Um, but you type that
22:56
Speaker 1: in the search bar at how stuff Works dot com
22:58
Speaker 1: and it will bring up this fine, fine article. And
23:01
Speaker 1: I said search part host of works dot com, which
23:04
Speaker 1: means it's time for listener mail. All right, Josh, I'm
23:09
Speaker 1: gonna call this, uh given a local Brooklyn night, a
23:13
Speaker 1: plug for his election. But that's not how it started. Okay,
23:18
Speaker 1: that's kind of a complicated title. Um, guys who just
23:20
Speaker 1: listen to your podcast How Labor Unions Work, And I
23:22
Speaker 1: want to thank you for trying to give a very balanced,
23:25
Speaker 1: uh story to what is a very complicated and contentious subject.
23:29
Speaker 1: As a former New York City union organizer, so this
23:32
Speaker 1: guy was the real deal. I am very familiar with
23:35
Speaker 1: the arguments against unions, but I truly believe American workers
23:38
Speaker 1: in the American economy are better off with unions and
23:41
Speaker 1: without when unions are strong. Typical union organizing when unions
23:46
Speaker 1: are strong, there is some counterpoint to this total acceptance
23:50
Speaker 1: of rampant greed that was essentially the cause of the
23:53
Speaker 1: financial meltdown in two thousand and eight. At this point,
23:55
Speaker 1: with unions at their weakest and a half century, we
23:58
Speaker 1: average Americans are being held hostage by operations. This is
24:01
Speaker 1: what he says. Um, I have to say. In my
24:04
Speaker 1: line of work, violence was not the norm, but intimidation
24:07
Speaker 1: by the employer was constant. They did everything from threatening
24:10
Speaker 1: workers with being fired, lying to them and telling them
24:13
Speaker 1: they did not have collective bargaining rights, to telling them
24:17
Speaker 1: the union would only steal their dues and not get
24:22
Speaker 1: them a good contract. The deceptive HR person right there. Yeah.
24:27
Speaker 1: Or they would tell workers, um, they would work out
24:30
Speaker 1: individual deals with them if they would vote against the union,
24:33
Speaker 1: like trying to Yeah, that's pretty pretty, Harry. Even once
24:37
Speaker 1: when we were organizing at a Catholic hospital, they told
24:40
Speaker 1: the workers they were going against God if they tried
24:43
Speaker 1: to organize. Yeah, can you see like those priests like
24:46
Speaker 1: union breaking cracking heads with metal baton. The only problem
24:50
Speaker 1: I had with your podcast was the lack of coverage
24:52
Speaker 1: you gave to the triangle shirtwaist fire. We mentioned that.
24:56
Speaker 1: He said it could have been none more. He said
24:58
Speaker 1: it could deserve its own podcast. Well, that's true, we
25:01
Speaker 1: mentioned it. He said it was one of the deadliest
25:04
Speaker 1: industrial accidents in the United States history. Last year, hundreds
25:08
Speaker 1: of people came out to commemorate the one year anniversary
25:10
Speaker 1: remember of the lives lost due to lock stairwells and
25:14
Speaker 1: exits that fire was a major turning point in labor
25:16
Speaker 1: conditions in New York City and around the world, as
25:19
Speaker 1: well as bringing light to women's terrible working conditions. And
25:24
Speaker 1: I wrote him back, and it turns out, uh A
25:27
Speaker 1: day e d is his name. Fox is running for
25:30
Speaker 1: Brooklyn City Council. I said, you know what, dude, we'll
25:33
Speaker 1: plug your campaign. Uh www dot e d E f
25:39
Speaker 1: o X dot com, ad a fox dot com and
25:43
Speaker 1: good luck in your bid. For city council in Brooklyn. Yeah,
25:46
Speaker 1: if you wear um sunglasses with Neon arms on them
25:50
Speaker 1: and into like your pro union, I would say, God,
25:53
Speaker 1: vote for this. I think we can help garner you
25:55
Speaker 1: a little bit of the hipster vote maybe, since we
25:58
Speaker 1: are both aging hipsters. I not a hipster, dude, I
26:01
Speaker 1: am not a hipster, and I've maybe aging, but I'm
26:05
Speaker 1: not a hipster. Well you look a lot more like
26:07
Speaker 1: a hipster than you used to. Well if you, uh,
26:10
Speaker 1: I guess if you have a political campaign you're running, Um,
26:13
Speaker 1: we want to hear about it. We heard from another
26:15
Speaker 1: guy um in uh was it in Maryland, a state legislator.
26:20
Speaker 1: He's a he's a legislator for Maryland who was writing
26:23
Speaker 1: about human trafficking. That's right. Shout out to that guy
26:26
Speaker 1: as well. Um, but if you are a politician that
26:29
Speaker 1: listens to stuff, you should know we want to hear
26:31
Speaker 1: your viewpoints. Let us know what you gotta say, how
26:34
Speaker 1: we're helping you, how we can help more that kind
26:36
Speaker 1: of thing, you know. Um, you can tweet to us,
26:39
Speaker 1: just please don't send us a picture of your junk
26:41
Speaker 1: like other politicians. UM to s y s K podcast.
26:45
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook, dot com, slash stuff
26:48
Speaker 1: you Should Know, and you can send us an email
26:52
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. Stuff
26:59
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27:01
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27:06
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