[Geysers] Geyser Report 10/8 (Stephens)

[lynn stephens]

THIS MESSAGE IS FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THE READERS OF THIS LISTSERV AND MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED FOR ANY OTHER REASON WITHOUT WRITTEN CONSENT FROM THE AUTHOR. 

06:23 10/9

We did have another hot period at Giant before dark on Friday, 10/7.  The hot period started at 1801 and had a duration of 8 minutes 40 seconds.  I was callling the hot period on the radio, so didn't make notes in my logbook, but Cave did not erupt, Turtle only overflowed, there was no significant surging from Mastiff, and India was not 100% covered.

On the morning of 10/8, Grotto was ie when Kitt got down there--for back to back marathons.  Grotto shut off sometime between 1300 and 1330.  By the time (about 1630) Dan Larsen and the Madsens got down there after Beehive, the recovery hot period had already happened.  Mastiff was depth charging, Bijou was on, and the platform was wet.

"Solstice" was active whenever anyone noted it.

Beehive erupted at 1608, preceded by the Indicator at 16:01.  Steve and Tonya had been watching for the Indicator, so we know the lead-time was only 7 minutes.  I noted that the Close to Cone Indicator was erupting at 16:10.  The last daylight Beehive was at 10:44 on 10/5.

Fan & Mortar marker is still in place.  I apparently sent my response to Janet Chapple's question about Fan & Mortar to the wrong address, so will repeat it here:

I saw these eruptions (the last three) and didn't note anything unusual that gave a hint that they would enter this formancy--nothing unusual about the events leading up to the eruption other than the fact that we had started having real eruptions of Bottom Vent whereas earlier in the summer Bottom Vent had not been erupting.  (But we've had incontinent Bottom Vents before.)  There was nothing unusual about the starts.  Durations were in the normal range.  Kitt reminded me that during the next to the last eruption (2116 on August 5), East Vent quit very early in the eruption, but it participated as usual in the last eruption (0709 on August 8).  (I don't have that logbook here so don't have exact times for the East Vent "pause".)  

As Tara noted, none of these, or any of the things she noted, gave clues that we were entering a dormancy.  If we had, we would have stopped watching event cycles much sooner than we did.  Fan & Mortar are still having event cycles with splashing in Main Vent, but nobody is spending much, if any, time watching and/or recording them.  Someone periodically checks the marker just to make certain they haven't erupted yet.

I skipped the daylight Grand to go to Great Fountain.  Kitt reported that Grand was at 13:23, a T1C.  The only 2 burst eruption recorded so far during October was the one Kitt saw on one of her Saturday trips.

Because Grotto was in marathon, I left the Upper Basin about 9:15 to go to the Lower Basin, hoping to close an interval on Pink Cone.  When I arrived at 09:30, Pink Cone was completely finished.  (Rocco had arrived at 09:27 and he pointed out it was already finished by then.)  Even the road bubblers had quit sputtering and steaming.  So the eruption must have started before 07:30, an interval well under the season average of 20 hours.

I went back to Great Fountain, cleaned out the back of the pickup, cleaned out the front of the pickup, caught up on my volunteer log, did Saturday correspondence, and was getting bored waiting for overflow and timing eruptions of White Dome when Great Fountain finally went into overflow.  (Thankfully Dan Larsen and the Madsens had given me periodic reports that Grotto was still in marathon so I didn't have to worry about getting back for the recovery hot period.)  Great Fountain erupted at 14:52, a double interval somewhere around 26 hours.  

Fountain was on "long" mode yesterday.  I had it 1136ns with a duration of approximately 29 minutes.  Steve and Tonya had it 1706ie (Kitt and I saw it 1726ie) and, if I remember correctly, Steve said it lasted 25 minutes from when they saw it.

Kendall and Curtis Madsen reported that Silex was murky in the morning, the runoff was wet, but that it had refilled by the time they got there (about 1030 or so).

Weather:  The sky was threatening yesterday, but the predicted showers didn't start until about 1645 and even then it was just light rain and snow.  I rode with Kitt out to Enos last night and there was rain on the way out and on the way back until about the time we hit the Lower Geyser Basin.  I was worried that the rain would turn to sleet, but there was only a tiny bit of icy snow on my windshield this morning and the road between the government area and the ranger station was wet but not icy.

Speaking of the trip to Enos, as we arrived in West Yellowstone, I realized that this was the first time I had been outside the Park since August 28.  I had been over to Fishing Bridge twice since then to go shopping at the Loft, but other than that my world has bounded by the Upper and Lower Geyser Basins. 

Wildlife:  Friday afternoon after filing the report for 10/7, as I was driving the service road from the VC to the lower parking lot, there was a bull with a harem of 28 cows and calves in the Myriad Group.  I wondered how he had gathered that many additional recruits.  Kitt pointed out that the other bull with 4 or 5 cows and calves was located farther west.  The bigger bull and apparently driven the smaller bull out of the meadow behind the Inn and in front of Geyser Hill.  Saturday morning the "big" herd was in the parking lot area and then migrated toward Castle.  The "big" bull was behind Castle tearing up the pine trees when he wasn't chasing after cows and calves that had wandered too far away.

After Beehive Kitt, Steve, Tonya, Sri Koka, and I were standing around debating what to do while waiting for someone else to call the "Water's rising in Mastiff" so we could go down for the recovery hot period.  About the time I realized the bird with a white tail and head was a bald eagle and announced "That's a BALD eagle", Kitt simultaneously said "That's AN eagle!"  It was flying toward the ground in the meadow slightly northwest of Geyser Hill, as if it was going to get some food.  Two ravens, one on either side, were harassing the eagle.  As the eagle flew off downriver toward Grand, we were hoping it would land in one of the trees so we could watch it some more.  But it just kept flying until it was out of sight.  Kitt said "Those ravens must have said something really nasty to it."  This is the first mature bald eagle I've seen in the Upper Basin this fall.

Lynn Stephens

 


 
 
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