Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Mammoth Hot Springs at Yellowstone National Park

Mammoth Hot Springs at Yellowstone National Park

Original - In the northwest corner of Yellowstone National Park, there is a large hot spring complex near Fort Yellowstone called Mammoth Hot Springs. It is a large hill of travertine that has been created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flows into Mammoth each day in a solution). Algae living in the warm pools have tinted the travertine shades of brown, orange, red, and green. The algae could survive only in the water of certain temperature. The white colors of some terraces indicates that they have no algae left because they cooled.

Alt 1

Reason: High quality and EV
Articles in which this image appears: Geothermal areas of Yellowstone
Creator: mbz1

comment If you see problems with English in the caption, please feel free to correct it.
Support as nominator --Mbz1 (talk) 23:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Can't see why not. Already been a FP at Common and Spanish Wikipedia. Kangxi Emperor 康熙帝 (talk) 08:19, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Lovely clarity, amazing colours... Gazhiley (talk) 09:09, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Could do with clockwise rotation, I think. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 10:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you are not sure about this, I would rather not. The thing is that some time ago I crashed my computer, and original images were lost. To work with the nominated image would mean to reduce the size, and the quality would get worse.--Mbz1 (talk) 14:15, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also hard to tell where the horizon truly is - not sure if we can assume that big calcium carbonate plateau is perfectly level. Fletcher (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom.: Yes, good point about the carbonate plateau. The pools of water and the cascade in the middle of the picture still don't look quite right to me (the cascade looks like it's flowing slightly uphill), but I'll accept that this is a rather unverifiable criticism, and I think the picture is good as it is. NotFromUtrecht (talk) 00:11, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. A good reminder to burn to disc! A crash lost almost all my Asian photographs several years ago; about the only thing that survived was an orchid from the Singapore arboretum. Glad you were able to salvage a good shot, mbz1. Durova⁴⁰⁸ 17:51, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Getting off topic but I would recommend one or more external hard drives and software that automates the backups. (I can never underestimate my own laziness). Fletcher (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Of course its always a good idea to upload to the wiki as soon as possible too :) Noodle snacks (talk) 07:45, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Nice image --Herby ^{talk thyme} 13:17, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support Very attractive image, encyclopedic. Fletcher (talk) 17:25, 7 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Aren't there already a number of hot spring featured pictures? (I might have just seen them at commons) Noodle snacks (talk)

I do not think it is the right question to ask. It is almost as asking "Aren't there already a number of hills or mountains or buildings or... featured pictures?" Hot springs are more or less rare, and they differ from each other a lot. We have this image File:Mammothterracetrees.jpg of the same hot spring featured, but even this one is very different from the nominated image. That image is mostly missing colors because, when it was taken, the algae was dead, which is an indicator of a changing tempeture of the springs. Hot springs are ever changing, and it is, what makes them interesting.--Mbz1 (talk) 16:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough. I should have been more specific anyway - I meant this spring in particular. Noodle snacks (talk) 04:45, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support per nom. Noodle snacks (talk) 08:13, 10 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Gazhiley and Fletcher, despite sharing NotFromUtrecht's unverifiable concerns about rotation. (The water flowing down the face at far right is the part that seems most unnatural to me.) Nice clear reflections too. -- Avenue (talk) 03:27, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted File:Dead trees at Mammoth Hot Springs.jpg —Maedin\^talk 17:43, 15 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]