[Geysers] Fan & Mortar 7-18 @ 0531

[Tara Cross]

> Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 09:58:59 -0600
> From: pollypanos at earthlink.net
> To: geysers at lists.wallawalla.edu
> Subject: Re: [Geysers] Fan & Mortar 7-18 @ 0531
> 
> 
>
This event cycle had a double River Vent pause. I didn't write down the
times (Kitt Barger did), but the cycle was not a very long one. It was
dark for much of it. Kitt and I heard roaring in Main Vent several
times, but we only heard one large splash. There was little from Bottom
Vent during this cycle. It began to get light before River, High &
Gold came on, and the strength and steadiness of those vents were
really our first clues that this event cycle was special. (We had some
nice event cycles the day before.) High went into lock before the
eruption. Fan was steamy and Mortar put on quite a show! The 5 of us
who were there got a bit wet and had a great time!
> 
>   Polly Panos
> 


This is a report on the events at Fan & Mortar prior to
the July 18 eruption.

 

Gazers began to monitor Fan & Mortar on the morning of
July 17.  Events on the 17th
were as follows:

 

~1000 Main Vent splashing
and Bottom Vent eruptions

 

~1300 Main Vent splashing
and Bottom Vent eruptions

 

~1700 Double
 River pause, Main Vent
splashing, Bottom Vent eruptions

 

~2200 Double
 River pause, Main Vent
splashing

 

Given that events were occurring every 3-5 hours, Kitt was
expecting an event cycle around 0200.  I
decided to get up with the sun at 0430, but as I was pulling in to the Ham
store parking lot, Kitt called with a report from Fan & Mortar.  Events progressed as follows:

 

0437 River on

0448 River off, River pause

0455 River on

0458 Large Main Vent splash

0509 River off, double River pause

0512 River on

0513 Gold on

0516 Angle on

0521 High and Gold vents steady

0526 High Vent in lock, Gold and Angle were strong but did
not lock

0529 Upper Mortar splash

0531 East Vent, followed about 5 seconds later by everything
else

 

The events seen on the 17th got progressively
better over the course of the day, but the water levels in the minor vents were
never very impressive.  The events on the
18th were not very impressive; the pauses lasted only 7 and 3
minutes respectively and there was no activity from Bottom Vent.  However, when the minor vents started, the
water levels were excellent and after 9 minutes High Vent was erupting
steadily.  High then built into lock, but
while Gold and Angle were strong, they never quite joined in.  Upper Mortar had a splash inside its cone 17
minutes after the start of River.  Then
about 90 seconds later, there was a splash in Main Vent, followed by the start
of the eruption with East Vent erupting by itself for several seconds before
everything else lifted into the air. 
There was a light breeze blowing the steam away from the boardwalk for
the first few minutes of the eruption, so viewing was quite good considering
that the lighting was still somewhat gray. 
Once again, Upper Mortar never completely stopped erupting, though it
did have several lulls in activity.  We
enjoyed being able to hear the roar of Main Vent in the quiet of the morning,
and it put several surges nearly across the gravel path without the aid of the
wind.

 

Big thanks to Kitt Barger and Polly Panos for being at Fan
& Mortar to call events!
--Tara Cross
fanandmortar at hotmail.com
 

 





_________________________________________________________________
Keep your kids safer online with Windows Live Family Safety.
http://www.windowslive.com/family_safety/overview.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_family_safety_072008
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20080721/2ecadadb/attachment.html>