48 pieces · NaturePhoto by Carsten Steger, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Aerial view of Grand Prismatic Spring in the Midway Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, seen from the south.
PuzzleBeat
Grand Prismatic Spring from Above
Enjoy this nature scene as a free online jigsaw. Pick your piece count and start solving in your browser.
This nature jigsaw runs entirely in your browser. Choose difficulty on the play screen, use the optional timer to race your best score, or upload a personal photo for a custom puzzle anytime.
No download, no account — just tap play and start placing shaped pieces on the board.
Grand Prismatic Spring from Above
Grand Prismatic Spring sits in the Midway Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, in Wyoming, and it is the largest hot spring in the park — third largest in the world, after Frying Pan Lake in New Zealand and Boiling Lake in Dominica. Geologists working on the Hayden Geological Survey of 1871 gave it its name, choosing "prismatic" because the bands of colour laid out around the pool run through most of the sequence a glass prism pulls out of white light: red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Explorers had noticed it well before that. A party of trappers crossing the basin in 1839 recorded a "boiling lake" they estimated at 300 feet across, which is almost certainly this one.
The colours are alive, in the most literal sense. Mats of thermophilic bacteria and archaea — microbes that thrive in water far too hot for almost anything else — grow in rings around the rim, and each ring sits where the runoff temperature suits it. Their colour depends on the ratio of chlorophyll to carotenoids they carry, so the mats skew orange and red through the summer and turn a darker green in winter. The deep blue heart of the pool is different: that is water's own intrinsic blue, showing most strongly in the middle where the spring is deepest and too hot to be colonised at all. The spring measures roughly 370 feet (110 m) across and about 160 feet (50 m) deep, and discharges an estimated 560 US gallons of 160 °F water every minute.
Seen from the air, as in this free Nature jigsaw, the whole structure reads at once — the sterile blue centre, the pale steam drifting off it, the concentric orange and ochre bands, and the boardwalk and stream channels threading through the basin around it. It makes an unusually pleasant solve: the colour gradient gives you an obvious order to work in, from the middle outward, while the fibrous texture of the microbial mats keeps the outer pieces interesting. Pick your piece count and play instantly in your browser — no app, no account.
How to play
- Tap Play Grand Prismatic Spring from Above puzzle to open the puzzle board, then choose your piece count and difficulty.
- Drag pieces from the tray onto the board and snap them into place until the full image is complete. Works with mouse on desktop and touch on mobile.
- Use the Preview button on the play screen to peek at the full reference image whenever you need a hint.
- When you finish, check your solve time on the completion screen and share it with friends to see who can beat your record.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is Grand Prismatic Spring so colourful?
- The rings of colour come from microbial mats of heat-loving bacteria and archaea living around the edge of the spring. Different microbes tolerate different temperatures, so they settle into bands as the runoff water cools, and the pigments they produce — the balance of chlorophyll against carotenoids — determine the shade. Summer mats tend toward orange and red; winter mats are usually darker green. The blue centre is not microbial at all: it is the natural blue of deep, clear water, most visible where the pool is deepest and too hot for anything to grow.
- How big and how hot is the spring?
- It is roughly 370 feet (110 m) in diameter and about 160 feet (50 m) deep, and it discharges an estimated 560 US gallons of water a minute at around 160 °F (70 °C). That makes it the largest hot spring in Yellowstone and the third largest in the world.
- Where is it, and can you see it like this in person?
- It is in the Midway Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Visitors walk a boardwalk right along its edge, but at ground level the steam usually hides the shape of the pool. The full circular view in this puzzle is an aerial one — the closest on-foot equivalent is the Grand Prismatic Overlook trail on the hillside above the basin, which looks down on the spring from the south.
- What's the easiest way to solve this puzzle?
- Work outward from the middle. The deep blue centre is the largest single block of one colour and anchors the frame, and from there each concentric band gives you a fairly clear boundary to follow. Save the outer basin for last — the pale grey-white crust and the surrounding trees have the least colour information, so use the stream channels and the line of the boardwalk as guides through that part.