[Geysers] GIANT, 4/29/08 @ 1502

[Lynn Stephens]

>
Mike O'Brien wrote:

> 	Giant has been having regular eruptions for quite some time
> now.  Could someone with better records than I have, recapitulate
> its known periods of activity in the past?  I'm wondering whether
> this current active period is starting to approach the length of
> its active period in the 1950s, for example.
>

Earlier this evening I reposted information about Giant's activity in the early 1950's, which came from Marler's Inventory.

As a more complete answer to Mike O'Brien's question about recapitulating its known periods of activity, I'm posting some information provided by Mike Keller in his article "The Twentieth Century History of Giant Geyser," which appeared in Volume VII of the Transactions.  Mike enumerated specific eruptions he had located by searching through numerous sources in the YNP archives, as well as changes in information contained in the Haynes Guides.  Mike included a "quick review of Giant Geyser's eruptive activity on a decade-by-decade basis:"

                                                               Mike's comments

1900-1909     92 reported eruptions           
1910-1919       7 reported eruptions            Records of geyser activity for this decade are practically non-existent.
1920-1929      87 reported eruptions            This is probably the first decade since the 1880's in which one can get a true feeling of what the geysers
                                                                were up to by reading the literature.  
1930-1939     107 reported eruptions           
1940-1949        55 reported eruptions          This is the first decade in which Giant is known to have had full years of complete dormance (1947 and 1948).
1950-1959      465 reported eruptions          The early 1950's were Giant's glory years.   
       Lynn's comment--Remember Giant went dormant  sometime during the winter of 1955-1956; the last reported eruption was 10/25/55.
1960-1969        1 reported eruption
1970-1979         1 reported eruption
1980-1989         8 reported eruptions
1990-1999        94 reported eruptions

Mike noted "Remember, this list is compiled from known eruptions; many others no doubt took place." Records prior to the 1960s are definitely incomplete.  The only year for which it is rasonably certain that no eruptions were missed was 1952 with 137 eruptions.  

In my opinion, records beginning with the 1960s are probably quite complete.

Thanks to Mike Keller for compiling the information and putting it together in his Transactions article.

Lynn Stephens
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