Hot springs at Yellowstone National Park provide a key element for coronavirus tests

The volcanic waters at two national parks are providing a key element needed in testing for the highly contagious coronavirus, according to the National Park Service.

That critical ingredient is a “species of heat-loving bacteria” (Thermus aquaticus) that thrives in hot springs at Lassen Volcanic and Yellowstone national parks, according to a Lassen Volcanic National Park Facebook post.

Labs are using the “unusual heat-resistant” enzymes generated by bacteria in a chain reaction that can “boost the signal of viruses in most of the available tests for COVID-19,” the park wrote.

Those tests have become critical in tracking the deadly virus, which has infected 1.2 million people and killed more than 70,000 across the world, according to April 6 data from Johns Hopkins University. There are nearly 340,000 confirmed cases in the United States, the data shows.

“The ... technology is helping to save lives,” molecular biologist Austin Shull told National Geographic on March 31.

A National Park Service report shows the bacteria, discovered a half century ago, thrives in hot springs as warm as 185 degrees at Yellowstone National Park, home to “the world’s tallest geyser” (230 to 294 feet).

The geysers, hot springs and mud pots in Yellowstone are fed by rain and snow that seeps into the ground and reaches a boiling point as it flows “through rocks that overly the magma storage region,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“It’s here where the chemical composition of both the fluid and rock become altered by geochemical reactions. The result? Heated and altered ‘hydrothermal fluids’ that absorb gases and chemical compounds from the magma and crust,” the USGS reports.

“These heated fluids are lighter than colder ground waters and buoyantly rise to the surface.”

This story was originally published April 6, 2020 at 12:24 PM with the headline "Hot springs at Yellowstone National Park provide a key element for coronavirus tests."