[Geysers] Activity in the Giant area, Aug. 20-22

[Tara Cross]

Merry Christmas from Yellowstone!  My apologies that this report is a few 
days late.

The following is a complete list of known hot periods for August 20-22, with 
a few comments.  For the most part Giant was not watched between the hours 
of 2200 and 0600, so doubtless several hot periods were missed each night.

Aug. 20

0936 Giant hot period, d=6m20s
1233 Grotto start
1309 Giant hot period, d~4.5m
1633 Giant hot period, d~8m.  Mastiff boiling picked up about 4.5 minutes in 
and reached 2-3 feet.  India was nearly covered.  Catfish began to splash 
about 6 minutes in and Mastiff surging did not die down.
1749 Grotto start, marathon
2054 Giant hot period, d=2m30s

Aug. 21

~1130-1140 Grotto shut off, duration of marathon just under 18 hours.
1432 Giant hot period, d=8m46s.  Mastiff boiling never exceeded 2 feet.  
India was about 2/3 covered.  There was a weak restart with some spurts from 
Feather and a few spits in Giant.
1929 Giant hot period, d~5m

[Gazers were out until about 2200; the first Grotto start had not occurred 
as of then.  This, and the Grotto interval formula, leads me to believe that 
the first Grotto following the marathon was around 0300-0400.]

Aug. 22

0924 Grotto start (I'm guessing this was the 2nd Grotto after the marathon)
0927ie Giant hot period, d>2 min.  Feather and Feather Satellite.  Mastiff 
barely overflowed, so this was likely a very short hot period.
There may have been an event at Giant around 1100--I saw Bijou on strong 
from Grand and when I arrived at Giant about 30 minutes later there was 
still water in channel Feather uses and there appeared to be some water in 
Mastiff's runoff channel.
1413 Giant hot period, d~7.5 min.  Exact duration not taken due to 
rain/hail/lightning storm that was occurring at the same time.  Feather 
Satellite started about 2 minutes in.  At about 4 minutes, Mastiff increased 
from 1-foot boiling to several surges, the tallest reaching about 4 feet.  
Then it dropped down and boiled to 1-2 feet.  India was almost covered.  
Cave erupted to 4-5 inches.  Once again, the restart was nothing exciting.
1510 Grotto start
1639ie Giant hot period, d~2m.  No Satellite or Mastiff overflow.
1828 Giant hot period, d=4m40s, no Satellite or Mastiff boiling (it did 
overflow).
2102ie Grotto Fountain and Grotto

There were two differences in the behavior I saw last weekend compared to 
the behavior observed before the Aug. 2 Giant eruption:
1.  Hot period durations were longer, on average
2.  Even though Mastiff boiling and overflow was comparable, the restarts 
were not as impressive.  Some restarts included up to a half dozen vertical 
splashes in Giant but most splashing was oblique and I didn't see anything 
that I would qualify as a real "surge."

As of 0900 this morning (8/25), neither Giant nor Fan & Mortar had erupted 
per the VC.

--Tara Cross
fanandmortar at hotmail.com

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