[Geysers] Geyser rreport August 17

[Tara Cross]

>Once again, no Giant (as of near 1400). Yesterday's Grotto proved to be another mini-marathon, with a duration of probably around 14 or 15 hours ending in the pre-dawn hours. A hot period at 0735 was probably the >recovery, with a duration of 10m 10s; Mastiff could not be directly seen due to steam, but Lynn said that it pushed waves of water across the platform. There were additional hot periods at 1130 (d = 4m 05s) and 
>1325 (d = 8m 18s), neither of which produced any real excitment.

Adding a bit to Scott's report, since I was in the UGB last evening--Ralph's electronic data put the end of Grotto at around 0215 on 8/17, making the 0735 hot period about 5h20m after the end of the marathon.  I did not get times for any of the hot periods during the day yesterday except for one at 1736.  Grotto started at 1644, and ended around 1930 for a duration of ~2h45m.  There was a Giant hot period at 1945, duration between 7 1/2 and 8 minutes (we saw Feather from Oblong).  Feather Satellite started a little over a minute after Feather, but Mastiff did not start surging until after the 2-minute mark.  The surging started with mostly 1-foot boiling, then progessed to wider boils to 2-3 feet, then some very nice surging to 4-5 feet that put out heavy overflow.  The strong surging took place between 3 and 5 minutes into the hot period, then died down again.  At 5 minutes into the hot period I noted that India had been completely covered.  Mastiff was flat for about 45 seconds and then began to boil again, but it didn't progress beyond several boils to 1-2 feet.  It then went flat again and began to drop.  Feather hung on for a while, but eventually stopped.  2 minutes after the end of Feather, it had a restart lasting 2 minutes--just Feather, no Satellite.  During the restart there was vertical surging in Giant, but all from a lowish water level; the highest surges were only 1/3 of the way up the cone.

Oblong erupted at 2012, and everyone headed in because it was getting dark and rather chilly.

I spoke with Carolyn Loren at the Visitor Center today and Giant had not erupted as of 1200.

--Tara Cross
fanandmortar at hotmail.com

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