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Part of a human foot, inside a shoe, found in Yellowstone hot spring
US rangers have found a human foot floating in a hot pool in Yellowstone national park, the park service said Friday (August 19), warning visitors to stay away from thermal waters, the AFP reported, the al-Arabiya english said.
The partial foot was inside a shoe in the Abyss Pool, and it was Tuesday's (August 16) discovery.
The Pool is one of the deepest hot springs in the park, whose temperature is around 140 Fahrenheit (60 Celsius).
The park said: “An investigation by Yellowstone National Park law enforcement officers is ongoing.”
“Evidence from the investigation thus far suggests that an incident involving one individual likely occurred on the morning of July 31, 2022, at Abyss Pool," it said. “Currently, the park believes there was no foul play.”
Accidents are not unheard of in the thermal pools that dot the country’s oldest national park.
In 2016 a young man died after slipping off a boardwalk and falling into a hot spring at the Norris Geyser Basin.
Last year two people had to be treated after being scalded by waters in the park.
“Visitors are reminded to stay on boardwalks and trails in thermal areas and exercise extreme caution around thermal features,” the park service said.
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“The ground in hydrothermal areas is fragile and thin, and there is scalding water just below the surface.”
Yellowstone, which welcomed more than 4.8 million visitors last year, spreads across 3,500 square miles (9,000 square kilometers) of Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.
It is home to thousands of geothermal features -- hot springs, mudpots, steam vents and about half the world’s active geysers, including Old Faithful.
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In such hot springs, the Associated Press said, superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks and is replaced by hotter water from below.
The circulation prevents the water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption like happens with geysers in the park, according to the park's website, it added.
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