[Geysers] Geyser Report 5/29 (Stephens)

[Lynn Stephens]

THIS NOTE IS FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THE READERS OF THE LISTSERV AND IS NOT TO REPRODUCED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE, INCLUDING PUBLICATION IN THE SPUT.

 

How quickly we forget.  When the "Grand" crowd arrived at Great Fountain yesterday, someone commented that the interval was the longest ever.  When I started to reply, someone said, well at least it was the longest in awhile.  Yes, it has been awhile.  A trip through Ralph's electronic data shows the last interval in excess of 12 hours occurred on 1/23/2006 (12h21m).  There were no 12 hour intervals in 2004 and 2005 either.  But 2003 in January intervals varied from 6h58m to 12h57m.  (I didn't scan the rest of the year.)  Looking at back issues of the Sput, for July 1 - September 30, 2002 intervals varied from 7h55m to 14h14m; for March - August 2001 intervals varied from 6h26m to 14h48m, and for May 2000, intervals varied from 9h51m to 16h31m.  Let's hope we're not headed for those "not so good" old days.

 

Items from yesterday:

 

Till remains on its 9 hour intervals.  One note--as with last year, these "shorter" intervals are a result of shorter overflows.  The overflow generally does not have time to reach the road before the eruption starts.

 

One Flood "major to major" interval of 59 minutes.

 

Pink Cone erupted at 1402, an interval of 22h05m.

 

Mercury is active.  I saw an eruption as I was waiting to cross the road from Biscuit Basin to go to Atomizer.  The eruption lasted less than a minute, and put water up onto the shelf but did not create any overflow.

 

I saw three Atomizer minors before the major.  The major was a "quick comeback" type major, 12 minutes after the preceding minor.  Double interval was 29h16m so the preceding major was probably not a "quick comeback."  If Atomizer is behaving as it has in the past, then so far 3 of the 4 majors for which I have either direct observational data or inferences from the interval have been "quick comeback" majors.

 

The marmot at Artemisia is out, to the absolute glee of an 8-9 year old boy yesterday.  He was fascinated by it on the family's way headed toward Morning Glory and delighted that it was still there on their return trip.  He took several pictures himself and wanted to make certain his Grandpa, sisters, father, and mother all got to see it.  His younger sister said it looked like a beaver with a cat's tail.  I've heard marmots identified as a lot of other creatures, including a beaver--but never a beaver with a cat's tail.

 

Lynn Stephens

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