Robin Baker, age 10, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for his question:

Do other places besides Yellowstone have Geysers?

The most famous geysers in the New World are in our wonderful Yellowstone National Park. But they are not the only geysers in the whole world. Most geysers are in Iceland and the word "geyser" comes from an Icelandic word that means "to gush". Goodness knows, these spurts of steamy hot water do indeed gush up from the ground. Other colonies of geysers gush forth in New Zealand, on the opposite side of the globe.

Geyser colonies are few and far between because the ground must be just right to create them. They occur in regions where heat frog: volcanic lava became trapped in layers below the surface. The underground rocks remain hot for thousands of years. Water from rains and melting snows trickles down through the ground to pockets amid the hot rocks. There it boils to frothy steam. Every now arid then, a geyser boils over and spurts its steamy water into the air.