Great Boiling Spring

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The Gerlach "Great Boiling" Springs are located less than a mile west of Gerlach.

The name comes from "'"Map of an Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842 - Oregon and Northern California in the years 1843-44,' Baltimore, MD: no publication date, no scale given. Litho by E. Weber & Co. Prepared by Brevet Capt. [[James C. Fremont J.C. Fremont] of the Corps of Topographical Engineers under the control of Col. J.J. Abert, Chief of the Topographical Bureau." (Citation from GNIS). See also Fremont' 1842 map (David Rumsey)

In 1973, Deborah Ann Brockelsby (age 19) from Lake Tahoe was scalded to death in one of the small pools (Reno Evening Gazette March 23, 1973, see also March 19 and 20). It was reported that she dove in to a hot pool after mistaking it for the cold pool. The pools were separated by a walkway. Merced Sun-Star - Mar 19, 1973.

Gerlach Bath House

Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Gerlach Geothermal: "Great Boiling Springs were used extensively for bathing for many years ( figure). Some pools are too hot for swimming; a 19-year-old woman was scalded to death in one of these in 1973, an indication of the danger inherent in geothermal areas. The Gerlach General Improvement District built a bath house using geothermal fluids in 1989. The facility was planned for use by tourists and local residents. The facility has been unable to obtain a permit from the health department because of plugging of water filters by sediment from the well. No bathing facilities are available at the present (2002)."

See Also

"The goals of this trip were to obtain high quality chemistry data, particularly redox active species, and samples for 16S rDNA clone library construction. The chemistry data will be used to model which chemolithotrophic metabolisms are most favorable in the bulk water at the sampling site and the clone libraries will allow us to see which microorganisms are present near the sediment/water interface at each site. We also helped Chuanlun Zhang with an experiment designed to enrich for microorganisms with chemolithotrophic activities of interest in situ."

  • Nevada State Journal, "Gerlach News, March 14, 1926, p. 2. Meeting held at the courthouse to discuss "possible big improvements" to the hot springs.