[Geysers] Wildflowers During Giant's Dormancy?

[JEFFREY CROSS]

I recall overhearing once that during the period of Giant Geyser's dormancy from 1959 through the gradual reactivation in the mid-1980s, wildflowers and grasses grew on the Giant platform.  Is this indeed true?

How many other groups of geysers have gone dormant all at once, as the Giant Group did during this period?  I can think of three:

Orion Group, Shoshone Geyser Basin, late 1970s and ongoing
Lower Group, Heart Lake Geyser Basin, between 2008 and 2010 and ongoing
Daisy Group, Upper Geyser Basin, during the 1960s and recovered in the 1970s

Any other areas?

I'd like to include this information in a short article that I am planning to write.

It's an interesting topic, because of the distinct difference between the dormancy of an individual thermal feature and the simultaneous dormancy (I suggest the term "systemic dormancy") of a group of thermal features.  Examples of the latter case seem to occur most frequently (but not exclusively, as the above examples show) as the result of geothermal energy development (ex: Beowawe, Steamboat Springs, Long Valley (?), and too many examples from New Zealand and Iceland).  Examples of the former are numerous and routine.

Jeff Cross
jeff.cross at utah.edu