Yellowstone National Park's famous thermal pool ruined by tourists' ‘good luck’ coins

The once-strikingly blue pool has transitioned to yellow-green due to coins, trash, and rocks thrown by tourists over the years

Yellowstone National Park's famous Morning Glory Pool once had pristine blue water, giving it the resemblance of its namesake flower. Sadly, that is no longer the case, as the geothermal pool located in the Upper Geyser Basin near Old Faithful in Wyoming has reportedly changed colour. Tourists have been blamed for ruining Mother Nature's spectacle by throwing “good luck coins” and trash into it.

Yellowstone National Park's famous Morning Glory Pool has turned yellow-green due to the trash thrown by tourists over the years

Tourists blamed for turning Morning Glory Pool's once pristine blue water yellow-green

The once-strikingly blue pool has transitioned to yellow-green due to coins, trash, and rocks thrown by tourists over the years. “We found tons, probably thousands of coins,” former Yellowstone ranger Jeff Henry told Wyoming news outlet Cowboy State Daily, reported Independent. “The main park road used to go right by Morning Glory, so that would account for some of the metal parts that looked like car parts chucked into the bottom of the pool,” Henry added.

The publication added that the edges of the pool have become yellow while its deeper part has turned green. In addition to the debris accumulated over the years, temperature change has also contributed to the change in its colour. Mike Poland, scientist-in-charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, said, “Hotter pools tend to be a brilliant blue, and cooler pools can be more colorful since bacteria can grow there.”

“At Morning Glory, the temperature cooled because people throwing objects in caused the conduit to become partially blocked, and the temperature went down, allowing different types of bacteria to grow,” Poland added. Yellowstone National Park historian Alica Murphy told the outlet that the tradition of throwing things into the pool dates back to 1872. She explained that tourists often throw coins in hopes of attracting “good luck.”

“Wishing wells are a time-honored tradition. Flip a coin into a wishing well and make a wish. There is something about a pool of water that gives humans a weird instinct to throw things into it,” Murphy said, adding that “people didn’t understand the plumbing and how geysers worked,” “There were lots of ideas about, ‘If we throw something into this pool, we might be able to make it erupt,’” Murphy explained, according to the outlet.