[Geysers] Geyser Report, Oct 26-27

[Tara Cross]

This is a geyser report for October 26-27, 2007.  Special thanks to Kitt Barger for many of these times.
 
Beehive did not erupt on the 26th so we thought there was a good chance on the afternoon of the 27th and we were rewarded with a lovely eruption at 1423.  There was standing water in Beehive's Indicator for about 10 minutes before it started at 1413.
 
The interesting news from Geyser Hill is that sometime in the past week or so, Scissors Springs have had some strong activity.  As early as the 22nd, Rebecca Roland saw that the eastern spring had carved a runoff channel, washed gravel, matted grass, and expelled garbage (coins, rocks, and a paperclip).  It is unknown how large the eruptions get at their maximum, but I saw strong boiling to as much as a foot today.  The water level pulses up and down every minute or two, and the spring overflows heavily on the rises.  The western spring rises and falls in sympathy with the eastern spring and has overflowed its rim.  I kept an eye on it while waiting for Beehive today; I do not know if it is having larger events by now or not.
 
Grand erupted at 0244E, 1315 (T2*Q), and 1945 on 10/26 and 1124 (T2C) and 1949 (T2?) on 10/27.  Rift was seen at 1801ie on the 27th.
 
Oblong erupted at 1502 and 2037ie on 10/26 and at 0101ns and 1125 on 10/27.
 
A bit more on Giant.  When I arrived at Old Faithful around 1100 on the 26th, nobody had any solid information about Grotto so when I saw that the Giant platform including Bijou was totally dead, my first thought was that the system was in marathon recovery (Grotto was off).  When I checked the Giant platform from the cage, I saw that the sign wasn't facing the boardwalk and started to think that perhaps Giant had already erupted.  After a while, though, I noticed that the sign had been sitting on a ledge where it could easily have fallen backwards.  When it started to look like Giant was having a fairly normal marathon recovery, I concluded that it was still due.  At 1900, when I knew it had been at least 8 hours since Grotto shut off, I made a radio call to let people know that there could be a good recovery hot period.
 
Based on the length of the recovery time--probably 13 hours--and the behavior of the GIP, Bijou, and Emerald, I would conjecture that Grotto had a very long marathon.  The recovery was reminiscent of the three 30+ hour marathon recoveries I saw in 2006.  After Mastiff's rises, which corresponded to rises in the GIP that were up to several inches above the overhang, Bijou would come on at normal full height for 1-2 minutes.  This activity continued for 2 hours prior to the hot period.
 
The hot period started at 2336.50 with Feather Satellite joining about 10 seconds in.  The SW Vents took over a minute to start.  Mastiff boiled 2-3 feet in the first few minutes, and then had a boil to about 5 feet before dropping down around the 4-minute mark.  A little over 5 minutes in it started surging again and reached 4-6 feet several times.  Then, during the 7th minute, it got really noisy and we saw a surge to the height of the cone.  At 2345.11, Mastiff's front vent rocketed across Catfish to 20-30 feet.  We could hear a great commotion behind the steam but I only caught a few glimpses of the water.  What I did see was impressively tall, 40-50 feet.  I didn't see when Bijou started but it was roaring loudly about a minute into Mastiff.
 
We couldn't see Giant's cone because Mastiff's steam cloud was creating a shadow from the moonlight, but we started to hear water sloshing out of the cone, and then in one thunderous surge the column lifted upward at 2347.  The top of the column reached above the steam so we could see the water in the moonlight as it reached higher and higher--well over 200 feet.  The cold night air amplified the sound of the roar and the water crashing down.  Catfish was splashing for a minute or two and then went into full eruption at 2349, duration roughly 4 minutes.  Mastiff was still having throaty surges at 2351 but it had finished by the time Catfish was over.  The duration of Giant was 87 minutes.
 
My experience on the 26th led me to check on Giant again on the 27th to see what actually does happen 12 hours after Giant has erupted.  Grotto Fountain erupted at 1131ie, and at 1141 Grotto had a weak, short eruption that didn't have the usual surge out the back but did put out some runoff.  When i returned to Giant, it had a hot period at 1148, d=1m58s.  Feather was joined by Feather Satellite and Rust about 40 seconds in.  Mastiff never overflowed and the SW Vents never came on.  There was something distinctive about the hot period, though--Bijou did not emit even a blip of water afterwards.  Grotto started again around 1330 and was still erupting at 1915 when I left Grand.
 
I don't think anyone reported that Fan & Mortar probably erupted overnight, Oct 24-25.
 
Great Fountain erupted at 1033 on 10/26, and then at 1017 and 2206 on 10/27.
 
Fountain erupted at 1112 (d=32) and 1655 (d=30) on 10/27.
 
Information on other geysers was too sparse to be of much value.
 
It's been cold, but the sun got through the clouds on the 26th and then the 27th was clear and beautiful after the geyser fog burned off.
 
--Tara Cross
fanandmortar at hotmail.com
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