[Geysers] Geyser Report 8/30-9/13

[Graham Meech]

This is a grab-bag report from my trip this fall.

 

The Sputniks were fun to watch.  The eruptions varied from weak short
splashing from one vent to stronger eruptions with 6 vents active.  The
combined height of all 6 sputs was probably only 4'.  Most eruptions were
just after West Triplet started but there were some series of eruptions
without West Triplet and at least two of them occurred when West Triplet
water levels kept rising high but it did not erupt.

 

Avoca was active on 9/3, erupting roughly every 2 minutes.  On 9/9 I watched
it for about 20 minutes and all I saw was boiling in the vent, no real
eruptions.  Has it finished its eruptive activity?

 

On the morning of 9/11 I noticed an exchange of function, Chromatic Pool
dropped and Beauty Pool rose and started to overflow under the boardwalk.

 

Sawmill Group - frequent steam phase Penta and Uncertain eruptions.  At
least one water phase Penta during my trip.

 

Fountain group - Old Cone was active one day.  Mornings Thief was active for
some but not all Fountain eruptions.  All eruptions I saw were in the first
few minutes of Fountain although the water did dome up in Mornings Thief as
late as 10 minutes into Fountain.  My final Fountain eruption on Saturday
13th was a real soaker.  I sat on the boardwalk and just let it hit me over
and over.  Rather hot sometimes too but I left with a big smile on my face
:-)

 

Ragged and Jagged are having nice strong eruptions.  Intervals were about
6-13minutes.  The small UNNG between Ragged and Green Spring (on Ragged side
of the boardwalk) has more water this fall then I had seen in the winter or
spring.  Its getting to look like a real (but still small) geyser now!
Green Spring had one heavy overflow while I was there but did not erupt.

 

West Thumb:  Twin was boiling vigorously in one vent and was full of water.
It certainly wouldn't surprise me if it erupted again.  Water levels in the
pools around Thumb Geyser seemed higher but the levels were still very low
at the Surging Spring end of the flats.  Lakeshore was still getting lake
water washed into the vents but it is probably above water now..

 

Norris:

Ledge has a lot of water coming from the long thin finger vent.  It was seen
in steam phase all day on 8/31 by the staff at Norris. 

Constant had all single eruptions while I was there with intervals from
32-35 minutes.

I saw two Arsenic eruptions but on different days.  Intervals were >1h.

Veteran is having some nice Major eruptions with very noisy side vent steam
phases.  On one day it was at least 4 hours between major eruptions but I
did not observed a closed interval.  The majors were starting from slightly
lower water levels than I had seen before.  One of the beaded rocks in the
pool was still poking through the water for the eruptions whereas it used to
need to be covered for a major eruption to occur on my previous visits.  The
majors lasted about 2 minutes, took a breather for a minute or two then
restarted somewhat weaker for another 6-8 minutes.

Steamboat - lots of water but seemed to be in garbage mode.

Vixen - silent

Pearl and Echinus are both overflowing hot springs.

Yellow Funnel is a vigorous muddy boiling pool.  The erupting mud feature
nearby at the turn in the boardwalk has more water in it now and was
splashing vigorously.

 

River group - The springs above Fortress have changed a lot   The large
colorful spring in the flats right above Fortress has now drained and the
thin sinter crust it built up all around it is crumbling away.  It is
interesting though to see all the vents it has.  It looks like the water and
energy has migrated a short distance to the smaller features on the flats
above Brain.  In this area there were at lest 6 active small geysers.  Bath
Spring was erupting intermittently from a small vent on the downstream side
of the pool.  Eruptions were only ~1' high and were obscured by the steam
most of the time.

 

Monument Geyser Basin - Two separate GOSA expeditions to this basin on the
same day yielded no reports of geyser eruptions!

 

Graham Meech

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