Great Boiling Spring

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." (GNIS)

• Alternative names:
  • Boiling Springs: Bancroft's Map of California and Nevada: 1868, scale 1 inch=24 miles. H. H. Bancroft & Co., Booksellers & Stationers, San Francisco, Calif. Entered according to an act of Congress, A.D. 1868, by H. H. Bancroft & Company in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California.
  • Borax Hot Springs: Clason's Map of Nevada. Denver: Clason Map Company, 1916, scale 1 in=16 miles
  • Gerlach Hot Springs: Carlson, Helen S., "Nevada Place Names, A Geographical Dictionary," Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press, 1974, 282 pp.
  • Mud Springs: Garside, L. J. and Schilling, J. H. "Thermal Waters of Nevada," Reno: Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Bulletin 91, 1979, 163 pp. Describes hot springs and hot water seeps of Nevada with location information and map at 1:1,000,000. map. (Mud Springs refers to the springs on the other size of Highway 447, see [http://web.archive.org/web/20070714132130/http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/geothermal/photos/Gerlach_aerial.pdf Garside (1979) Aerial Photo, (archive.org)).

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)."

• Image of Gerlach Bath House (1994)

See Also

• Gerlach Hot Springs Park (Wikipedia)
• GNIS Great Boiling Springs Google Maps
• L.J Garside and J.H. Schilling. 1979. "Thermal waters of Nevada." Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology Bulletin 91. 1979
  • Gerlach Geothermal (Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology)
    • Archive.org version of the above with working links to some of the images.
• University of Georgia Great Boiling Springs (Dead Link)
• Brian P. Hedlund Summer 2006 Nevada Hot Springs (Dead Link)

"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.