[Geysers] Fan and Mortar details, August 1

[Tara Cross]

Here are the details for the August 1 eruption of Fan and Mortar, sorry again for the delay.

I'll make a note here that I did not suffer through the 2 or so days of total garbage that several others endured prior to the eruption.  Based on what I was told by Scott Grisso and Jim Scheirer, cycles were short and disorganized, with River on most of the time and very short off times.  There were no real event cycles, just several Main Vent splashes at highly inappropriate times such as while Angle was splashing.  There was never any water in Bottom Vent.

I returned from a backpack trip and was quite surprised to find out that Fan and Mortar had not erupted yet, and to be told about the misbehavior that had occurred while I was away.  I decided to go have a look for myself before sunset.  When I first arrived, the vents were on, and water levels were lousy.  I was probably there for 20-30 minutes before River shut off, but Angle kept splashing.  Scott went over on the bridge to look for Riverside, but after a few minutes I noticed that Angle had stopped and there was steam coming out of Main Vent.  When I walked over, I saw that there was also splashing in Bottom Vent.  Scott said that was the first water he had seen in Bottom in 2 days.  Events progressed as follows:

2038 Main Vent first splash
2042 Main Vent huge splash, water into East Vent
2045 River on, Main Vent continues to splash
2100 River off, River pause
2110 Bottom Vent #1 (d~9m)
2119 Bottom Vent #2 (d~2m)
2122 River on
2123 Angle single splash
2024 Gold and Angle start at the same time
2133 Lock
2140 Fan and Mortar

Water levels were outstanding from the start, and there was little doubt that this would be the eruption cycle.  The lock started only 9 minutes after the start of Gold.  I thought we would have a really short River-to-start time, but lock lasted 7 minutes.  In a nice change of pace, Lower Mortar was the first vent to start erupting, quickly followed by everyone else.  It was a Mortar-dominated eruption.  At first we had lights on it but it was just dark enough for the moonlight to take effect and there were moonbows throughout the eruption.  The duration was 29 minutes.

--Tara Cross
fanandmortar at hotmail.com
 		 	   		  
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