[Geysers] Report September 15, 2009

[Lynn Stephens]

Items from the Old Faithful VC logbook

 

Note:  My calculactions show the 112 minute Old Faithful interval on September 14 shown in the logbook should have been 102 minutes.

 

Castle 0536E major; 1917 major

Daisy 0704, 0928, 1153, 1411ie, 1804  0013E, 0214E, 0441E, 0705E

Fountain 1557ns

Grand 0303E, 1338 (T1Q) d=13m23s

Great Fountain 15:20 oflw = 80, p = 9

Riverside 0855, 1452ie

 

Beehive 0727, Indicator = 0715ie

Lone Star 1138vr minor, 1211vr major

Plume 0707, 0807, 0904, 1412

Aurum 0742

Grotto 0955, 1558ie

Grotto Fountain 0953, 1558ie

Lion 1125, 1300ie

Sawmill 0614ie (end 0826), 1057ie, 1240, 1538ie

West Triplet 1101 (d=30 min)

Oblong 0956ie, 1614

Sputnik 1105, 1117, 1130, 1336, 1349, 1400ie, 1418, 1425

Penta 0926ie steam phase

Labial 1148

Narcissus 1226 (d ~ 12 m), 1510ie

Pink Cone 1238 (I=22h58m)

White Dome 1247, 1320, 1346, 1420, 1503, 1522, 1545, 1616

UNNG in Tangled Creek 1306, 1330, 1341, 1537 (not necessarily closed intervals)

 

Another sign of fall--The ferns at Firehole Lake have turned rusty brown.

 

After Barbara L. called that she though Beehive's Indicator was in eruption, I shut down the computer, then drove to the Inn parking lot so I could go to the Beehive overlook.  I stopped two men out for an early morning walk.  It turned out both of them had seen Beehive yesterday, and both of them were waiting to see Old Faithful this morning.  One of them stayed to watch Beehive again, commenting "This is a lot more impressive than Old Faithful."  As Beehive erupted he enjoyed the sight of some of the people on Geyser Hill moving to avoid getting wet.  The other man just kept walking because he wanted a picture of the Old Faithful part of this morning's Beehive/Old Faithful dual.  The sun had barely crested the horizon as Beehive erupted so, as far as we could see from our side of the river, none of the steam column was highlighted with sunlight.

 

As I was watching the eruption I was reminded of a man seated on the boardwalk in front of me at the overlook during yesterday's eruption.  He was using his cell phone to video the eruption and I thought to myself, "I'm going to have to try that one of these days."  His comment as Beehive ended, "That was better than anything Disney can do!"  

 

I went out to Great Fountain after my back and shoulders said I had spent enough time working on the October Sput article.  Seeing that it was going to be awhile before it erupted, I posted a prediction, then drove on over to Pink Cone.  I gave myself an hour of allowance before I had to return to Great Fountain.  My hour had just run out, I had buckled my seat belt and inserted the key in the ignition when Pink Cone started splashing heavily, then surged, then erupted.  I quickly extricated myself from the seatbelt, and jumped out of the pickup hoping the side vent would splash up (it didn't).  A couple drove up just as Pink Cone started.  She commented, "Great timing."  I thought to myself, she doesn't know just how great it was because I really would have been bummed if I had seen the steam column out the driver's side window as I rounded the corner at Hot Lake.

 

Some interesting exchanges at Great Fountain today:

 

When I got to Great Fountain I looked at the pool and knew it was going to erupt well past 1 pm, which was the double interval roll-forward prediction.  I initially put up a prediction with 3 pm as the end-point and an opening point 1-1/2 hours from the time I had arrived.  Then I started rolling forward the opening point.  As the spread between the opening and end point narrowed to an hour, I just erased the end-point and put up a "?"

 

Overheard from the pickup:  One person reading the board said, "We were here two days ago and it was set to go off in the evening, so it must be an every 1 or 2 day event."  Sunday's eruption was 10:14, so he must have seen the 8 to midnight prediction.  I still couldn't quite follow the logic on how he decided it only erupted once every 1-2 days though.

 

While waiting for Great Fountain to go into overflow:  About 13:30 a man approached me, quite concerned that they had missed the eruption because the Visitor Center had predicted 1 pm.  I explained that the prediction was 1 pm +/- 2 hours and no, Great Fountain hadn't erupted yet.  His response was that the standing water on the benches must have come from a recent eruption and he was certain they had missed it.  I replied that the water was left over from last night's rainstorm, and no, it had not yet erupted yet this morning and had not yet even gone into overflow.  Then he said to me again, "But there's water on the benches and I'm certain it must have come from an eruption."  I wanted to say that the only thing that had erupted was the sky.  Thankfully Maureen stepped in to confirm that we were still waiting for overflow and he finally walked away, shaking his head that we didn't agree that the water on the benches had come from an eruption.  My vision--That must have been some superburst!

 

Out on the boardwalk:  One man approached me and commented that when he had been here before "that one over there" (pointing at White Dome) was really active the last time I was here, but not so active today.  Has something happened to it?"  Since I had just been working on the Sput article, I knew that the median (29 minutes) was the same in 2007, 2008, and the second half of 2009, and the mean was basically the same in each year (34 minutes in 2007, 33 minutes in 2008, and 34 minutes in the second half of 2009).  I looked at my notes for today and intervals had been 33, 26, and 34 minutes.  As tactfully as I could, I gave him the numbers and said I hadn't seen any change, but sometimes it would have several consecutive short intervals and then throw in a long interval, so perhaps he had just been unfortunate enough to see a long interval.  I kept my thought that I'd been there longer today than he had and I hadn't seen any long intervals today to myself.

 

The only way today's eruption at Great Fountain could have been improved upon was if there had been sunlight on the eruption.

 

I had predicted 1520 plus/minus 15 minutes and for the second day in a row, Great Fountain erupted right at the midpoint.  At least some of the crowd must have wondered why I sent up a cheer when Great Fountain forced up a 4-meter boil (no question about whether or not it was a 1-meter boil) at 1520, then the water level dropped and Great Fountain returned to gentle boiling.  (Yes, Bill Warnock, White Dome did erupt at 1522.  A running joke this summer has been connections between Great Fountain and White Dome.  Bill's contribution was the post-1-meter boil White Dome connection with Great Fountain's pool dropping below overflow.)

 

Friday when Maureen saw a superburst there had been a 10-minute pause, so she was rooting for another long pause today.  As the pause strectched out, she became more and more hopeful.  After a 9-minute pause, Great Fountain threw up a burst with a blue base, then seconds later followed that one with a blue bubble and a massive superburst.  The first portion of the superburst went straight up, then three more bursts went through it, each one reaching higher, until my arm was pointed straight up with my fingertips trying to get to the top bubbles of water.  Great Fountain kept doing blue on blue (rejoice oh rejoice), with blue in the second, two blues in the third, including a blue bubble, not just a blue base, then more blues in the fourth.  We were hoping for blue in the fifth, but despite the fact the fourth had been a strong burst, the fifth petered out to absolutely nothing, not even enough water expelled to count when calculating whether or not to move the midpoint of the next prediction.

 

Another sign of fall--I've stopped posting predictions at Great Fountain for the next eruption because I don't know how frequently I'll get out there to update the board and don't know what project/rove time the interp. staff has available to monitor the prediction board.

 

A final comment about Great Fountain's eruption--Even though visitation has dropped off, I probably had as many cars lined up between Great Fountain and White Dome today as I did any day during the summer.  At one point during Great Fountain's eruption Maureen counted 8 cars double parked along the log bumper.  One RV driver had to use his wife to help him get between one set of cars as they left after the second burst.  

 

I managed to avoid the worst of the two traffic jams between Old Faithful and the lower basin today--"dead" bison (a bison just taking a nap in a sprawled position) and a big elk (Barbara has a picture since she was stuck in traffic, I don't because I was able to keep moving) near Steel Bridge.  

 

Another sign of fall--people setting up along the Madison River to watch the bull elk with their harems.  These people are just as passionate about the elk as we are about the geysers.

 

Lynn Stephens

 

 

 

 

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