Is a mountainous crater filled with fog realistic? Ways for a species to penetrate the fog?

I have an area of my world that is essentially a large crater. It is a huge barren land surrounded by mountains. The ground is stone, then below are underground rivers, and below those are pools of lava. The lava causes the water to boil and steam, forcing the moisture through cracks in the stoney ground above. Since the area is surrounded by mountains, the wind currents go over the area and the fog never dissipates.

Would the climate behave this way?

In the land is a creature who has become adapted to the heat and moisture. They are intelligent like humans. I can think of two ways they would be able to see in this climate. One, the creatures have infra-red vision and have learned to ignore the heat of the air, so other creatures or structures would appear because they have different heats. This would also mean that if a person were to enter the area and change their body temperature to that of the air, they would be invisible? Two, the creatures have some sort of tunnel vision which allows them to pierce the fog, caricaturing blind spots everywhere except the very center of where they are looking.

Are either of these ideas realistic?

Are there other ways to penetrate fog without some kind of technology? Magic is acceptable, tho preferably not used unless it has to do with genes

Edit:

The lava is significantly far underneath the ground. Hot steam rises through cracks and are cooled high in the mountain air, then the fog produced descends and fills the crater. Assuming that's realistic.

I was assuming that there was a good chunk of stone between the lava and rivers, but apparently the lava would melt it or cool. Could this create a balance that would both heat the water to form steam and also allow enough stone to be left for the water not to fall directly into the lava?

I was imagining moss and small squishy/shrubbery type plants. Possibly some kind of foliage from Avatar, that is well adapt to damp conditions.

posted almost 10 years ago

Towell‭

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