[Geysers] Geyser data summary

[Ralph Taylor]

Scott,
 
Good questions!  By the way, I today received the next set of downloads, so
it is back to the keyboard.  Unfortunately the logger on Beehive has gone
missing (critter attack, we think), so no more data there after the 28
February data.  I have an article in the upcoming Geyser Gazer SPUT with
more data, discussion, and some of the graphs so that may help explain what
is going on.
 
My answers are interleaved below.

-----Original Message-----
From: geysers-bounces at wwc.edu [mailto:geysers-bounces at wwc.edu] On Behalf Of
TSBryan at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 21:06
To: geysers at wwc.edu
Subject: [Geysers] Geyser data summary


I hope people have paid attention the latest summary of geyser data (1-1 to
2-28-2005) posted by Ralph Taylor... but by way of that, I point out and
also I query Ralph on the following:
 
1. Noted before, Beehive having an interval as long as 43h 18m, and
averaging 21h 18m. 
 
The long interval occurred on 16 January in a string of long intervals
starting on 13 January.  Intervals dropped to below 24 hours by 20 January
and generally remained between 15 and 22 hours until 8 February when they
began fluctuating between 15 and 28 hours until the end of the data. 
 
2. Little Cub with an interval of 44h 23m. Remarkable. Ralph says he's sure
it's real. And note that even with that, the median interval is still as low
as 57m.
 
There were many periods lasting most of a day where Little Cub would have
50-60 minute intervals--70% of all intervals were under 66 minutes, hence
the low median.  Another 10% of the intervals were between 90 and 120
minutes, and just 2% were over 12 hours (18 intervals), seven of these were
over 20 hours.   Incidentally, Plate Geyser has also begun to have long
periods of inactivity separating sets of five to 10 "normal" intervals of
around three hours.
 
 Oblong -- an interval of just 37 minutes. Yay -- a series. First I recall
hearing of in several years. Oh, but 'sob', also an interval of 19h 41m.
 
The really long Oblong interval could well have been a missed eruption or
two as the temperature curve is flat at zero degrees C (freezing) suggesting
ice dams.  Oblong has been having sets of eruptions four or so hours apart
separated by longer intervals for some time now but I hesitate to call that
behavior series behavior.  The 37 minute interval is real, and is almost
certainly the old series behavior.  The good news is that fully 90% of the
intervals in January and February were between 3 and 6 hours, with nearly
75% being between 3h30m and 5h30m.
 
DAISY -- tell me Ralph -- can that long interval of 16h 32m really be
correct? Might there have been ice build up, or something?
 
There could have been ice buildup, I suppose, but the temperature remained
above freezing at the sensor for much of the 16 hours, and the shape of the
curve (slow cooling after the last eruption then a slow rise suggestive of
overflow) makes me think the long interval was real.  The one on 8 January
is not so definitive and could have been the result of an ice dam.  There
were three intervals over 12 hours, all of them having short intervals
(around 3 hours) before and after.  Well, the 10h50m interval on 13 January
followed a 6h14m interval, but the one before that was 3h45m and the one
after was 2h46m.
 
Grotto shows an interval of 46h 21m. Does the electronic data indicate that
this was the interval following a marathon?
 
Yes, the 46h21m interval followed a 29h12m marathon eruption (the longest
duration so far in 2005).
 
And last, Artemisia ranges all the way from 8h 14m to 25h 50m. The mean is
16h 16m. The question is, are the intervals widely scattered in that range,
or are most clustered fairly near 16 hours?
 
Artemisia has had varying intervals.  In January for three weeks intervals
fluctuated widely (up to 24 hours) but were not consistent at all with the
shortest interval of 2005 in that three week period.  From about 25 January
to the end of March most intervals were between 14 and 18 hours with a lot
of variation.  I'm tempted to say there was a pattern, but it was not
definite.  For example, around 13 February successive intervals were 14h00m,
18h31m, 13h21m, 14h16m, 17h48m, 16h30m, 14h43m, 20h36m, 14h18m.  These form
sort of a sawtooth graph, but not regular enough to be terribly helpful in
predicting the next eruption.
 
Between 8 March and 8 April 56% of the intervals were between 13h30m and
17h30m, if that helps.
 
Thanks, Ralph.
 
Happy to have interested readers!
 
Ralph
Scott Bryan

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