[Geysers] Grotto activity, July 2-3

[Tara Cross]

A message from Tara Cross <fanandmortar at hotmail.com>

So, one of the big questions I had about the activity leading up to the July 3 Giant eruption was, what in the world did Grotto do overnight July 2-3?  There were major thunderstorms moving through the Old Faithful area that night, so no gazers were out in the basin.  When we arrived at Grotto in the morning, Grotto Fountain was full and overflowing, so it looked like it was time for another Grotto.  So did it have a "normal" eruption overnight?  Or did it do some sort of aborted marathon?

Well, Ralph Taylor's temperature logs tell the story, and it's interesting.

Grotto ended a marathon around 1315 on July 2.  Grotto started its next eruption at 0318 E on July 3.  According to the logger, the eruption was 10 minutes long.  That's right, it had one of those "aborted" eruptions.

This is VERY interesting to me, because in other situations where Grotto had short (duration 5-15 minutes) eruptions, it followed up 2-4 hours later with a longer eruption.  On July 3, however, it waited TWELVE HOURS.  (Try plugging THAT into the Grotto formula!)  For at least 8 1/2 hours of that time, Grotto Fountain was having intermittent overflows and South Grotto Fountain was erupting every 7-14 minutes.  So what was happening at Grotto on July 3 was extremely weird, even by 2006 standards.

Here are excerpts from my notes for the other short-duration Grotto eruptions that I saw between June 27 and July 10.

June 28

1504ie Grotto Fountain
1516 Grotto, d~5m
1720 Grotto Fountain
1731 Grotto, d>4h

July 9

1352ns Grotto Fountain
1406 Grotto (d=13m)
1816 Grotto Fountain
1820 Grotto

One word of caution on the electronic record:  while the logger picked up the short eruption on July 9 (showing a start time of 1407), it did NOT pick up the eruption on June 28.  It shows the first eruption following the marathon that started on June 27 at 1732 on June 28.

Thanks, Ralph, for posting the electronic data!

--Tara Cross
fanandmortar at hotmail.com





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