[Geysers] Grand Geyser Legend

[Gordon Bower]

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005, Tara Cross wrote:

> > > Grand Geyser Legend
>
> Yes.  Place an asterisk(*) after the number of bursts if the 2nd burst
> exceeded 75 seconds in duration.  Place a pound sign(#) after that number if
> the 3rd burst exceeded 75 seconds.  There was one unusual instance when
> gazers were pressed to come up with a symbol if the 4th burst exceeded 75
> seconds--but I cannot remember what it was.  (Dave Goldberg could answer
> this.)

OK, time for those of you with long memories to dig into them for a
moment. When was the cutoff reduced to 75 seconds? Was it dropped in one
fell swoop, or did it get lowered in stages as the long 2nd bursts became
rarer?

I see, looking at the logs posted on www.geyserstudy.org, that as far back
as the fall of 1997, "d>1m15s" appeared in the logbook legend.

However, in 1992 and 1993, the requirement was apparently 2m30s. I have in
my notes for those years a 2m36s second burst with a star, and 2m00s and
2m13s second bursts without. I also have a distinct memory of being chided
by a more experienced gazer, when I said something like "...but that was a
REALLY long 2nd burst, the longest one I've seen all year, why doesn't it
get a star?" after one of the second bursts right around 2 minutes.

My text files of transcribed logbooks 1995 to summer 1997 specify 25
minutes for a Delay, but do not reference the * and # symbols until
September 1997.

GRB