Sulphur Springs is a geothermal field on the island of

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindian ...

. It is located to the southwest in the district of Soufriere, a name given by the French meaning 'sulphur mine', because of the proximity of the town to the site. It is the most popular tourist destination in Saint Lucia, with approximately 200,000 annual patrons to the park, and is known as 'the world's only drive-in volcano'.

Mine

A sulphur mine was operated by Bennett and Wood from 1836 until 1840. Maximum production occurred in 1836, with 540 tons of sulphur exported.

Activity

The Sulphur Springs emerged from a weak spot in the crust of the enormous collapsed crater creating an upheaval of lava approximately 300,000 years ago. The most recent volcanic eruption from the Sulphur Springs, recorded as a minor explosion, occurred in 1776.

Springs

The water located at the center of the springs boils at roughly 212

Fahrenheit The Fahrenheit scale () is a temperature scale based on one proposed in 1724 by the physicist Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736). It uses the degree Fahrenheit (symbol: °F) as the unit. Several accounts of how he originally defined his ...

(100

Celsius The degree Celsius is the unit of temperature on the Celsius scale (originally known as the centigrade scale outside Sweden), one of two temperature scales used in the International System of Units (SI), the other being the Kelvin scale. The ...

) creating large plumes of steam. The water coming out of the spring is blackened by a chemical reaction between the high content of

sulfur Sulfur (or sulphur in British English) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula ...

and

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

. The spring water also contains large deposits of

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

, iron oxide,

alkaline In chemistry, an alkali (; from ar, القلوي, al-qaly, lit=ashes of the saltwort) is a base (chemistry), basic, ionic compound, ionic salt (chemistry), salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as ...

lead,

calcium oxide Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, Caustic (substance), caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "''lime (material), lime''" co ...

, and

carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent In chemistry, the valence (US spelling) or valency (British spelling) of an element is the measure of its combining capacity with o ...

. Sulphur still billows from the cracks in the caldera. There are also active boiling mud pits around the area.

Tourist attraction

The Sulphur Springs are a popular

tourist destination A tourist attraction is a place of interest that Tourism, tourists visit, typically for its inherent or an exhibited natural or cultural value, historical significance, natural or built beauty, offering leisure and amusement. Types Places of ...

in St Lucia due to their ability for tourists to literally drive up to the edge of the springs. Up until the mid-1990s, tourists were able to walk right up to the end of the tar-colored pits. Following an accident where a local tour guide named Gabriel fell through the crust into a pit and received second degree burns from just above his waist, the formation of what is now known as Gabriel's Hole has restricted viewing to a platform a few hundred feet away. A couple of hundred yards downstream from the springs, the water temperature is still hot (around 110 Fahrenheit or 45 Celsius), but cool enough for tourists to enter and give themselves a

mud bath A mud bath is a bath of mud, commonly found in areas where hot spring water can combine with volcanic ash. Mud baths have a long history that dates back thousands of years. Mud baths are conceived as public bathing spaces created in open areas ...

. These mud baths are believed by some to have medicinal properties and are used by some tourists and locals for said reasons.

References

{{Reflist Geography of Saint Lucia