[Geysers] Chemical analyses of water now available

[Gordon Bower]

The USGS collected and analyzed water samples from a bunch of places in Yellowstone many years ago, and released two reports in the 1970s with results -- but it's next to impossible to obtain copies of those old reports (memory says they are Open-File Reports 75-25 and 79-704, but don't quote me on that.)

There is some good news: the USGS has now released a web database presenting a bunch of these analyses: Mariner, Venezky, and Hurwitz, 2006, Chemical and isotopic database of water and gas from hydrothermal systems with an emphasis for the western United States.  http://pubs.usgs.gov/ds/2005/169/

The intro material on the web page says "chemical and isotopic data accumulated by two USGS projects over a time period of 40 years" are available online now -- and a quick search does indeed reveal several dozen analyses of water samples from Yellowstone from 1969 onward.

I hope some of you may find a use for it , and perhaps someday the GOSA website will include a bibliography of old research on Yellowstone and links to more recent non-GOSA results like these.

Also, if someone DOES have a copy of one of those Open-File Reports handy .... would you mind checking to see whether it looks like ALL of the previously published results have been re-released, or just a few selected ones?

GRB