[Geysers] Geyser report tuesday July 26

[TSBryan at aol.com]

First, in case you hadn't heard, there was an earthquake at 2208 last  night, 
magnitude 5.6 with an epicenter 13 miles northeast of Dillon, MT. That  puts 
it roughly 110-120 miles from Old Faithful. Most people at Old  Faithful and 
here in West Yellowstone felt the quake, for me a gentle back  and forth. Were 
any geysers affected? Well, maybe. But first about Fan and  Mortar.
 
Fan and Mortar erupted today at 1442, the interval being 3d 23h 50m. But  
that's not the story. Earlier (about 0900) there was a pathetic event cycle that  
consisted of exactly two splashes in Main Vent. That was all. Thereafter, the 
 cycles were pure garbage. In the cycle before the eruption (at about  1350), 
 Gold came on rather quickly after River; Angle had not stopped from  the 
previous cycle. The one remarkable (?) thing was that Gold's water remained  
quite high for several minutes, but only Gold (High and Angle seemed their usual  
weak and erratic selves). So almost everybody departed the scene. Fortunately, 
 not quite everybody. A short while later came the call that High Vent was  
playing 2 to 3 feet high steadily. Angle was on, as it again had not stopped  
from the previous cycle. A few minutes later, about when everybody was headed  
that way from hither and yon, came the call that Gold and Angle were also 
steady  -- Fan's vents were in lock. I do not have all the detailed times of this  
progression. Suffice to say that most of us got there in time. The eruption  
started perhaps 30 seconds after a surge in Upper Mortar, but it was an East  
Vent-Main Vent start with Mortar (both vents) a few seconds later. A bit of  
Fan's water reached across the boardwalk and the dirt, perhaps 2 or 3 feet into 
 the plants near Backwater Spring. Nice lighting. Mostly nice wind direction. 
My  video is a keeper.
 
Moral: F&M can erupt from what appears to be a garbage cycle -- this  one 
involved absolutely NO "event" -- unless High going steady several minutes  
before Gold and Angle can be called an event.
 
Back to other stuff. Daisy was having remarkably short intervals -- 2h 08m  
and 2h 11m, and we saw some (not much, but some) boiling/surging in Splendid's  
main vent. Earthquake effect?
 
It was discovered during the day that nobody had seen Plume. Sure enough,  
low and its surroundings bone dry. Yesterday it had been doing what it had been  
doing recently -- intervals mostly 45 to 60 minutes. So it quit sometime in 
the  night. Earthquake effect?
 
Beyond that, all seemed pretty normal today.
 
Scott Bryan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20050726/595d0913/attachment.html>