[Geysers] Regarding Fan and Mortar

[TSBryan at aol.com]

I shall let readers determine what is more important, subtle detail or 
general facts, but I feel that I must be allowed to respond to the comments made by 
Lynn Stephens to my report about Saturday's Fan and Mortar eruption. In any 
case, Lynn argues that that Fan and Mortar eruption was not a "carbon copy" of 
the eruption of Thursday, August 19, citing "...some, at least subtle, 
differences between the two starts."

Well, picky is as picky does. Somebody who evidently saw both eruptions -- 
perhaps it was Barry Leedy, but I'm not certain of that -- made a statement that 
I at least interpreted as "carbon copy." Maybe it was something akin to 
"essentially identical." Whatever, the carbon copy process (for those who don't 
remember it !) never did produce exact replicas of an original -- there were 
always a few smudges and such. In dealing with these eruptions of F&M, I certainly 
did not mean that there were no differences between them. However, too, I 
believe the differences to have been so slight as to make the posted comments 
inane.

One important fact, for example, is that Angle Vent did go into the loud 
steam phase during the lock. It was long-lasting during the preliminary activity 
to both eruptions. That it briefly (evidently, very brief) went back into water 
phase on Thursday and did not do so on Saturday seems awfully unimportant to 
me. The fact is that the two steam phases were __ highly similar __.

Main Vent evidently required a few more and _maybe_ somewhat stronger surges 
to trigger the Thursday eruption than it did on Saturday. Wheee. Both 
eruptions were in fact triggered by Main Vent surging and, "somebody" did indeed 
orally state the (paraphrased equivalent, no doubt): "That's what it did on 
Thursday." Who, really, cares exactly how many surges there were? The trigger was __  
highly similar __.

Frying Pan Vent on Thursday was _maybe_ (quote I ... may have missed it. 
unquote) not on before the surges on Thursday. On Saturday, it came on less than a 
minute before the surges, and then only weakly so. In fact, it might have 
been on on Thursday and in any case the two episodes were __  highly similar  __.

Both eruptions happened at the end of Fan Vent locks, one of more than 10 
minutes and one more than 11 minutes. Both near or at record-setting. __  Highly 
similar  __.

Even within this season, people (including Lynn) have begun packing up their 
things to leave the area if an eruption had not started within 25 minutes of a 
River Vent start. Here, we have both 26 minutes and 33 minutes and -- gee -- 
eruptions happened. Both historically overly-long. __  Highly similar  __.

In the above time frame, supposedly the only way that F&M could possibly 
start to erupt was via Upper Mortar surging. But here, or so I was told, on 
Thursday (I was told) and on Saturday (as I observed myself) there was no-zero-zip 
action in Mortar, Upper or Lower, during Fan's lock. Mortar had, for all 
intents beyond being part of the system, nothing to do with the start of F&M on 
either date. __ Highly similar __.

Lynn cites the difference between 26 minutes (Thursday) and 33 minutes 
(Saturday) from River Vent on to eruption time as being a quantifiable 25% 
difference. OK. I am so often glad that I am not a mathematician, nor a statistician. 
Bearing in mind that here we are dealing only with the minutes and not the 
seconds, this difference between 25% and the actual 26.92307% is 7.69228%, a value 
I've repeatedly been told would be highly significant. And so........oh, 
shoot, for get it........

The important point is that Fan and Mortar have had two consecutive eruptions 
that occurred during event cycles that involved __ highly similar __ events. 
That's what matters. No doubt they'll be different next time, since "they are 
geysers."

Sorry if I got a bit hot, but gee whiz...... how about if next year we all 
calculate Old Faithful's average interval to the 1/1000 second -- that's what 
Hutchinson did 30 years ago, and surely we're more accurate today!

Scott Bryan
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