[Geysers] Geyser report May 17

[TSBryan at aol.com]

No tour today, so into the basin for a relatively short day -- always  things 
to do at home.
 
White Dome was 0805ie as I drove in.
 
Grotto was 0830ie and was off at about 1000.
 
Giant had observed hot periods at 0854 (d = 0m 52s, whee) and 1004  ending. 
At 1056, viewed from Grand, Bijou was off for at least 6 minutes but  nothing 
was visible from Mastiff, and at 1158 as seen from near the VC there was  steam 
in the right place when nothing else was steaming, so maybe something  fairly 
potent was happening.
 
Saw one Oblong, at 0907.
 
Daisy 0914 and 1223.
 
Artemisia's steam cloud was seen at 0955ns.
 
More on Grand at the end of this, but suffice to say here that today's  
eruption at 1106 (T2Q) ended an interval of 9h 43m. This was one of those where  
Grand dropped at Turban started, then came back up to start playing at least 1  
1/2 minutes into Turban. This eruption also finally began on the second Turban 
 after West Triplet quit (there was no Rift).
 
Got a wonderful Uncertain at 1051. Penta had a steam phase eruption at the  
start of that same deep drain.
 
Lion initial at 1213. Only caught Plume at 1012 and 1236.
 
Went over to Black Sand Basin to see if the "new" geyser was doing  anything. 
Answer: No.
 
So went out to Faountain only to find it in eruption, ending at 1322. So  
home to the laundry basket.
 
At the OFVC, I copies out all the Grand times from the logbook for May 8  
@1849 to May 17 @1106, and now have figured the intervals. In order, they have  
been (h:mm):
7:08, 7:50, 6:43, 7:39, 11:33, 6:38, 6:28, 6:57, 6:45, 6:43, 9:11, 7:58,  
7:20, 8:32, 9:53, 6:25, 9:16, 6:44, gap, 8:47, 6:12, 8:14, 6:32, 6:10, 7:03,  
9:43. Mean interval: 7h 41m.
 
Comments:
1. There seems to be no good explanation for those 9+ hour intervals.  
Today's 9:43, for example, might have had a Rift in the night, but that would  have 
been quite early in the interval when Rift typically seems to have no (or  
little) effect. There have been other long intervals on which there wasn't even  
a West Triplet, yet Grand still went long, simply looking poor during a whole  
series of Turban cycles.
2. Note the intervals of 6:12 on May 15 and 6:10 on May 16. Both of these  
seem to be reliable, certainly that of the 15th. That of the 16th (yesterday)  
was, I think, reported by one of the new naturalists, but somebody else  
(familiar with GOSA, has a radio, etc., but I don't know who he is) commented on  
"last night's really short Grand." So... (somebody also entered into the logbook 
 for that eruption "(3 superbursts)" -- take that as you will.)
 
Scott Bryan



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