[Geysers] Geyser report August 27 and 28

[TSBryan at aol.com]

August 27, Shoshone Geyser Basin
In total, 10 people made it into Shoshone for the day. I with Tara  Cross, 
Julie Thomson and Mike Frazier got to the basin at 9:37. Others --  Carlton, 
Nancy and Jeff Cross, Rebecca Roland, Jim Holstein, and Bill ------  (got to 
learn that name!) arrived 1 to 1 1/2 hours later. In similar fashion, we  didn't 
all leave at the same time. I departed at 4:20.
 
My personal goal was #1 to get high-res digital photos of features I'd  never 
seen before, and then #2 to get photos of other things. Therefore, I  
actually recorded few eruption times. A total of 122 photos, it turns out.
 
Geysers/spouters observed:
Trailside -- 0939 for 26 seconds/1610 for 31 seconds. The interval leading  
to the "departure" eruption was in excess of 25 minutes, quite long for  
Trailside.
Double -- a disappointment, as none of us saw it have a full eruption --  
lots of bubbling and occasional splashes to 18 inches or so was all.
Meander -- dormant.
Black Sulphur -- active as usual although perhaps not as strong (not as far  
into the stream) as years before.
Soap Kettle -- low level, boiling vigorously but no overflow in a long  time.
Gour and Shield -- These had at least four active phases while we were  there 
(i.e. on arrival) and apparently another active cycle began shortly after  I 
left. One of these cycles had a duration of about 45 minutes.
Five Crater Hot Spring -- active when there was no runoff from Gourd. Some  
eruptions reached up to 2 feet high, intervals of 5-6 min, durations 2-3  min.
Minute Man -- one active cycle, the preliminary burst followed by about  half 
an hour before the full, frequent activity set in. Saw nothing from "Minute  
Man's Pool," but then, I was across the stream for the entire cycle.
The Orion Group remains at a low level, excepting Taurus and Kitchen and  the 
features down the slope. Water could be heard boiling down (way down) inside  
Union.
Geyser Cone -- dead as can be and severely decayed.
Fall Creek area (Western Group) -- We found spring USGS 132 to be active as  
a geyser, two vents involved (sometimes separately, sometimes together) with  
lots of bubbling and thumping and occasional splashes perhaps as high as 2  
feet. We saw one clear-cut quite interval that lasted only 30 seconds or so.  
Pectin was not active; Not-Pectin maybe active, or perhaps the moisture around  
it was runoff from elsewhere. Boiling Cauldron as usual.
Three Crater vicinity -- no activity seen
Outbreak -- drowned and filled with orange bacteria.
Unnamed -- not too far from Outbreak, a small geyser playing to about 1  foot 
was seen one time.
Rototiller -- it is likely that you haven't heard of this one. Jeff Cross  
saw it develop as a spouting crack in the ground last September, and by the end  
of that day it was an erupting hole. Now it had formed a rather large crater 
and  it erupted every (roughly) 5 to 7 minutes, each time for about 15 to 25 
seconds  and up to maybe 8-10 feet high with frequent strong jets angled toward 
the  south. Sometime the eruption consisted of a single "burst," but we saw 
some that  consisted of two bursts separated by around 30 seconds plus one 
eruption in  which the second burst persisted for a couple of minutes. A really 
fine  geyser.
The Hydra -- having frequent, slight overflows but not active.
Velvet -- boiling but dormant.
Lion -- probably dormant.
Old Lion -- clearly active with significant washed areas, but no eruption  
for us.
Bronze -- active as usual with boiling around the rim, but sometime  recently 
it has had one or more episodes of overflow strong enough to have  created 
significant runoff channels that lead far away from the crater.
Iron Conch -- normal activity, eruptions about every 9 to 12 minutes for a  
minute or two.
Knobby -- one nice series for us, the first interval of 40 minutes but then  
in series about every 4 minutes, tending to get stronger as time went on. 
Active  for about 45 minutes.
Bead -- the first time I've seen Bead, it gave ut three intervals while we  
watched, 73, 71 and 73 minutes, durations about 1m45s. Julie loved the filling, 
 bubbling, thumping episoded by adjacent Terracette during Bead's  intervals.
Small -- frequent eruptions to about 2 feet.
Yellow Crater -- constant boiling at a low level.
Brown Sponge -- slight bubbling only.
Glen Spring -- all-but totally quiet with gentle overflow.
Mangled Crater -- fairly frequent eruptions, none particularly  strong.
Frill -- frequent pulsing overflows but, sadly, no eruption for us.
Pearl -- steady overflow.
USGS 110 -- apparently a spouter, 1 to 3 feet high from two vents.
 
That would seem to be it. A good time was had by all. But why do they keep  
adding steep hills and miles onto the trail. It didn't used to be that long a  
hike!
---------
Given yesterday, I made it a short day today (only about 0715 to 1030, then  
to the Lower Basin).
 
If you hadn't heard, Fan and Mortar erupted Sunday evening, 8/26, at  2056.
 
Grotto was in marathon, having reached about 18 hours as of 0730 or  so.
 
Daisy 0610E and 0829.
 
No Oblong was called while I was in the area.
 
Grand was apparently at about 0315vr, then 0956 (T1Q).
 
Per Dave Whinery, last night Castle had a minor at 2314, for a minor  
duration of about 13 (yes, 13) minutes. That fits with today's observation of  
constant splashing until the major finally happened at 1050 (minor interval =  10h 
41m ! ). Ralph says that analysis of datalogger records indicates other  minors 
as long as about 12 minutes.
 
Lion 1001 initial.
 
I caught Plume intervals of 59, 58 and 57 minutes.
 
Last night, Lynn got Great Fountain at 0004. Today it was 1207, P ~ 11 1/2  
min.
 
Jeff Davis got Labial at 1046.
 
Scott Bryan



************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at 
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20070828/ad4e4634/attachment.html>