[Geysers] Geyser Report September 25

[Lynn Stephens]

aSelected information from the OFVC logbook (information in the logbook as of 06:00 9/26)

 

Caslte 0806 major

Daisy 0852 1112ie 1310ns

Daisy 0156E, 0408E, 0627E

Grand 0338E, 1248, 1938ie

Great Fountain 0548 [Presumably E time], 0636ie

Riverside 0605, 1151, 1742

Beehive 1001 (Ind-0951ie), 2335

Lone Star 1310 major

Plume 0747, 0848, 0952, 1200, 1312, 1516ie, 1616

Artemisia1022ie

Grotto -- not ie 0545, no eruption yet as of 1845

Lion 0850, 1021ie

Oblong 0921, 1332ie, 1736ie

Plate 1849ie

Victory 0555 start, end ~0618; 0907 off ~ 1530; 2738 still erupting every 1-2 minutes at 1845

 

Victory:

    Victory changed its eruptive behavior patterns today (9/25) .  The first eruption this morning started at 0555 and ended about 0618 per steam cloud observation.  I noted the steam cloud had dissipated at 0618, biked up and verified at 0620 that it was drained and no longer erupting.  The runoff did not cross the asphalt path.

    Victory started its next eruption at 0907.  Victory had been bubbling vigorously when I arrived at 0850 and the bubbling continued until a splash reached 6" at 0907.  At 0920 Victory ceased splashing.  The water drained into the crater, dropping out of sight.  So, I started to write it off.  But at 0921 the water resurged and Victory started erupting again for a "second burst."  At 0925 Victory was once again calm, the water dropped, but only about 2-3 inches, then it restarted at 0926.  This repeated at 0928 with a weak restart at 0929.  Yesterday while Bill W. was watching it, Barbara L and I noted that some of the bursts were reaching close to the top of his head, which was the strongest eruptive activity we had seen.  Through the periodic stops/starts, the highest activity I saw this morning was about 3 foot bursts.

     This calm, drop, restart activity continued through 0935.  At that point the breaks in the activity became strong bubbling for 30-45 seconds, then bursting activity for a minute or so.  I returned to Fan & Mortar, watching Victory's activity from there.  It continued this boil, erupt, boil, erupt, boil, erupt activity through about 15:30.  I had started referring to it as a perpetual spouter.

     Sometime around 15:30 the activity ceased and Victory did not have any eruptive activity again until 1738 when it started the boil, erupt, boil, erupt, boil, erupt pattern again with periods of eruptive activity varying from 1-1/2 to 3 minutes and periods of calm varying from 2 to 5 minutes.  When I left at 18:45 it was in the boiling function and Dave Goldberg had arrived to watch it.  He may have additional observations.

 

     When I biked to F&M this morning (9/26) , Victory was erupting vigorously (probably 2-3 feet) as I passed it at 0545 and was also erupting when I came back at 0554.

 

Other observations:

     I spent the entire gazing day (0545 - 1845) at the rock pile.  I watched three eruptions of Riverside.  The 1742 eruption again had a vivid rainbow.

     The green metal fence around the area where the former employee pub was located in back of the Inn has been replaced with a pole fence.

     Robert Fournier stopped by the picnic bench at Morning Glory and he and Bill Warnock exchanged memories of Sapphire's huge eruptions after the 1959 earthquake.  Bill has promised to help me write something for the Sput and dig out some old photographs.

     The plume from the Arnica Creek fire built again this afternoon and we received a report from the Visitor Center over the FRS radios that the road between Bridge Bay and West Thumb was closed.  The closure was apparently temporary since Kitt Barger was able to come in last night.  She had emailed me that she was skipping this weekend, but I heard her voice announce the 2335 Beehive eruption.  (When I saw her this (9/26) morning, she indicated she had not stayed out for the F&M eruption.

     At one point someone said the raven's were laughing at us. Byron, from Louisiana, commented that he grew up with cros, and when he first came here, he thought the ravens looked like crows on steriods, like somebody had blown them up like balloons.

     Late in the afternoon Bill W. and I were feeling rather bored and started making up doggerel, with the help of another person who had spent much of the day at the rock pile:

 

     Spent the day at F&M

     Ravens squawked, just look at them

 

     Fools they are to spend so long

     All the signs they saw were wrong.

 

     Many geysers did erupt

     Bill and Lynn did not get up

 

     Fruitless countless hours lost

     Look on Lynn's face got quite crossed

 

     There sat Bill for hours too

     Felt the day he soon would rue

 

     Morning brings another day

     F & M come out to play

 

     But it with its usual spite

     Erupted in the dead of night.

 

(Last verse finalized this morning after overnight eruption was confirmed.)

 

Because Maureen E. said she liked my doggerel, I also wrote a verse for her using the pattern John Warnock had given me that resulted in the Giant doggerel published a couple years ago in the Sput:

 

    That's Maureen, Tai Chi queen,

    Blue in Fountain makes her dream.

 

Unfortunately, the verse I wrote for Sarah W. and Chris to the tune of Happy Birthday for a Fan & Mortar eruption will have to wait since none of us got to see F&M erupt.  

 

Lynn Stephens

 

 

 
 		 	   		  
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