[Geysers] Benchtop geysers

[Davis, Brian L.]

First, a brief introduction. I'm a 40 y.o. stay-at-home Dad in Indiana, who also has a PhD in physics, and teaches physics, geology, and astronomy at a local university here in Indiana (a state notably lacking in geothermal activity :( ). I finally took my family out to Yellowstone in the summer of '06, and tagged along behind a group of gazers (I had no idea they existed at the time) on a wonderful day, finding the bunch at Grand, and after that trailing them as they seemed to know what they were doing for a nice play from Oblong.

If I hadn't been hooked prior to that, I certainly was after. Thank you all for instilling the addiction in another person. I never spoke to any of you... but just listening to your verbal "play" during the geyser play was one of the best parts of a fantastic dawn-to-dusk day.

I'm coming out of lurking to ask opinions and additional information on constructing a "benchtop" model. This started out as a daughter's science fair experiment, but I realized I could end up doing a lot more with it personally after the fair. Here's the best paper I've found on it:

http://www.fmf.uni-lj.si/~planinsic/articles/LasicArticle.PDF

Note that this is a *very* simple model, but still interesting from the standpoint of educating folks. What I'm curious about is suggestions for variation and other measurements. I'm planning on making several "models", including a simple tube (as in the paper), a tube with a constriction (possibly a variable one, using a piece of soft tubing pinched externally), multiple paths or reservoirs, and probably a more realistic model of refilling from a already warmed reservoir (instead of the water draining back from the eruption directly into the plumbing). I would value any suggestions, comments, or critical comments on this idea. Not the science fair part - getting a model that erupts and has a single variable (like heat input) would be more than sufficient for that.

Thoughts I've had are what allows multiple plays like Grand, as opposed to single eruptions, or what it takes in terms of the plumbing system, heating rate, and recharge structure to generate a steam phase, and what keeps it from happening in others. Obviously some of these are going to be too difficult to do on a benchtop (no deep plumbing, no high pressures), but the idea is interesting to me.

Ideas? and thank you once again for waking up a flatlander several years ago - I still watch the videos I took that day, and love the conversations on this list.

-- 
Brian Davis
wanabe gazer in Indiana