Yunoko [Hot Spring] - Yunoko

Japanese: 湯ノ児[温泉] - ゆのこ

A hot spring located in the northern part of Minamata City, Kumamoto Prefecture, overlooking the ria coast of the Yatsushiro Sea. It is said that the hot springs originated when Emperor Keikō, during his conquest of Kyushu, discovered lukewarm water naturally gushing out from the coast and commented that "this is still a hot spring." Until the end of the Taisho period, hot springs gushed out from the coast and in the sea, but in the early Showa period, successful exploratory drilling of the hot springs was carried out, and after a road along the coast from Minamata was opened, the area developed into a hot spring town. The heat source is thought to be related to magma activity in the ancient Ryukyu volcanic belt in the Neogene period, which heats deep groundwater, causing it to bubble up from cracks in the limestone of the Paleozoic layer.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

熊本県水俣市北部，八代海のリアス海岸に臨む温泉。景行天皇が九州平定の折，海岸に自然湧出していたぬるい湯を発見し，〈これはまだ湯の児だ〉といったのがそのおこりと伝えられている。大正の末までは海岸や海中に湯がわき出ていたが，昭和初期に温泉の試掘に成功し，水俣からの海岸沿いの道路が開けてから温泉街に発展した。熱源としては新第三紀の古期琉球火山帯のマグマの活動と関係があるとみられ，これが深層地下水を加熱し，古生層の石灰岩の割れ目などから湧出していると思われる。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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