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ST. GEORGE — At the confluence of White Canyon and the Colorado River, bubbling gas billows from a cone made of mud.
This "mud volcano" was discovered by staff from the Glen Canyon Institute and the Returning Rapids Project, where Davide Ippolito is a boat operator, according to the Institute's 2022 fall journal. The Returning Rapids River Project is run under the Glen Canyon Institute by a "group of river loving folks based in Moab" who document the Colorado River, according to its website.
"A giant cone of sediment that looked like a pimple, bubbling water up from below," staff wrote. "None of us had ever seen anything like it. The brown, glistening mountain bubbled and burped. Mike DeHoff (the project's principal investigator) wondered if it was methane. "Could we light it on fire? Would it explode? We lowered David to the rim of the cone with a lighter in hand. He flicked the lighter as the volcano gurgled a release, and a small fireball erupted. Cheers of excitement would have been heard for miles."
