[Geysers] Beehive and the Indicator.

[conantb at swbell.net]

Given the two pieces of information: 1) The Indicator sometimes erupts without Beehive, and 2) Beehive sometimes erupts without the Indicator, we can only make the following weak statement.  No strict causal relationship exists in either direction (the Indicator doesn't induce Beehive, and Beehive doesn't induce the Indicator), at least not ALL of the time.

This leaves the possibility that SOMETIMES one does induce the other.  We can't rule that out, but it clearly doesn't happen all the time.

The conclusion (as usual) is that the system is more complex than that.  Whatever is happening down there USUALLY produces the phenotype INDICATOR THEN BEEHIVE, but has enough degrees of freedom to show many other modes of behavior.

A general idea that we usually don't consider relates to what is going on in a geyser when it is NOT erupting.  We can make inferences about different things that might be happening from differences in eruptive activity.  But differences during periods of inactivity are much harder.  All kinds of wildly different and complex stuff might be preventing eruptions, or otherwise at play between eruptions. But from the surface, we usually just get the same unchanging quiet pool or steaming hole.  Situations like garbage mode at F&M or Steamboat are similar.

Summing up, inactivity at the surface might reflect lots of activity at depth, OR inactivity at depth.
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