[Geysers] Feature in former Castle runoff (Schwarz)

[Gordon Bower]

The sput has had a gravel cone around it, assembled from chips of sinter washed down from castle, for a long time - fresher sometimes and slowly collapsing at other times. When the runoff channel from Castle was still in regular use, I doubted this hole had its own water supply- I thought it was just a drowned fumarole that mostly dried out between Castles - but lately it has maintained a nice little frying-pan-like sizzling and sputtering (and tossing of gravel a few inches high) even with no influx of water. 

There has only ever been one time that I've seen it throw gravel as far as the inside edge of its "( )"-shaped cone (it would be round, but it is pierced by the runoff channel on both the upstream and downstream sides), but the presence of the cone is evidence it has been doing better periodically for years.

I have been referring to it in my notebook as "Littoral Geyser" since at least 2009. It has a cone, but it didn't deposit the geyserite itself that made it. Littoral cones are volcanic features that form when a lava flow enters the sea and explodes and shatters -- they look just like cinder cones but they are made by steam explosions, using lava from a volcano miles away, instead of being fed fresh magma from underground like a normal cinder cone. 

I'm not seeking a big fight over names, but I offer it up as a more interesting alternative to Gravel Cone, with a bit of a story behind it since this particular cone was formed in such an interesting-for-Yellowstone way.

GRB