[Geysers] Some unsolicited advice regarding Fan and Mortar

[David Schwarz]

   I've been meaning to send in a note about this since I got back from my
Aug. 12-19 trip to the park.

   If I had to offer a single piece of F&M watching advice to the crowd that
was watching event cycles that week, it would be this:  A lot of you are
leaving way too early, and sooner or later, if Fan and Mortar get more
frequent, you are going to find yourself just getting back to the Hamilton
store as somebody calls the lock, and you're going to see the start from
somewhere between Castle and Grotto.

   To be clear:  Fan and Mortar are not "toast," as they were often
characterized that week, just because the vents are not splashing
continuously or voluminously.  I can recall maybe two eruptions out of the
50-odd I've seen from the start when Gold and High came on strong and stayed
continuously strong until the start of the eruption.  In the vast majority
of cases, they died down to comparatively minor splashing for five or ten
minutes before coming back with high water levels and then continuous
jetting.

   In some cases, particularly in the early '90s when East Vent starts were
common, Gold and High went entirely to steam for a while (five or ten
minutes), only to recover suddenly and erupt 30 to 35 minutes after the
start of River Vent.

   I saw several event cycles in August where up to ten minutes after most
gazers headed out because Gold and High stopped their early-cycle jetting,
water levels recovered appreciably and held for several minutes.  Based on
my experience, any one of those cases could easily have proceeded to a lock
and eruption in minutes, and it wouldn't have been a case of "It's a geyser,
it can do what it wants," it would have been a very typical build-up to
eruption for the last 15 or more years.

David Schwarz
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