The mudpots in these photos are located along the San Andreas Fault at the Salton Sea. They are a couple miles from the more well known and less active mudpots at Schrimpf and Davis. A mud pot is a natural double boiler! Surface water collects in a shallow, impermeable (usually due to a lining of clay) depression that has no direct connection to an underground water flow. Thermal water beneath the depression causes steam to rise through the ground, heating the collected surface water. Hydrogen sulfide gas is usually present, giving mud pots their characteristic odor of rotten eggs. Some microorganisms use the hydrogen sulfide for energy. The microbes help convert the gas to sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay. The result is a gooey mix through which gases gurgle and bubble. Another mudpot in nearby Niland resulted in the SR-111 Highway having to be rerouted around it. The nearby train tracked have had to be rerouted as well. Note that these particular mudpots cannot be driven to (unless you have a vehicle capable of driving through very deep and sticky wet clay) and are not practical to walk to (unless you're prepared to trudge through muddy wet clay that is nearly waist deep in some parts. They're best seen from above like you're seeing here. I'll be posting some high-resolution 4K videos of this area in the next few days. While in the process of filming, my drone ran out of battery power (I should have started flying back to the home position sooner) and dropped out of the sky into the water. I thought all hope was lost, but the next day I returned with my inflatable boat and sailed out to the exact coordinates of the crash site according to the flight log. The water was about 2.5 feet deep and too murky to get any visual confirmation. I hoped out of my boat and my feet sank at least a foot into the soft bottom of the lake. I shuffled around for less than 5 minutes until my toes bumped into something. I reached down and it was the drone! So, now that I was able to recover the drone, I can make an insurance claim and get a replacement drone. I will NOT be making this same mistake again! No more pushing the limits of battery power when I fly! Also, I must commend SanDisk for their "Extreme" microSDXC memory card that survived being submerged in hyper saline water for nearly 24 hours. After rinsing the card in clean water and drying it off, I was able to recover all the high definition photos and videos without any trouble. (The photos and videos I posted the other day were lower-resolution versions transmitted wirelessly to the flight controller).
