[Geysers] Fountain Report

[Maureen Edgerton]

Fountain Report

Hello everyone.  I thought I would send an update about Fountain,  since I have been lucky enough to see it a bunch of times since April 20 when the park opened.

First day in the park, I hung around the area for 8 hours and did not find it, nor any sign of Morning's Thief, so I did figure that long intervals were in play.  The second day, Jake Young and I were lucky to see a beautiful eruption at noon time.  Fountain is still its amazing blue and bubbling self.  

We were guessing it was doing over 9 hour intervals, yet it soon became apparent that it was doing 11-12 hour intervals.  One day there were 11 Morning's Thiefs before the eruption and 2 during it, I think that is the most I have recorded thus far.  Now that I have some handle on it, I usually show up 1-2 hours before when I "best guess" the eruption, and then record MT activity until Fountain decides to show up.  

Changes this year are that the pool is now much fuller for hours before Fountain erupts.  It is about 20 inches from the top of the rim.  It undulates an inch or so for hours, and then there is still a "Fountain Rise" where it comes up a good 4 inches or more before the eruption begins.  Twig usually comes into play at the end of Fountain, sometimes 10 minutes before the end, sometimes right at the end.  I thought we were continuing to get Twig every other Fountain, yet when I did get a closed interval, Twig erupted at both eruptions, so maybe the longer intervals is causing Twig to erupt at every eruption.

One bonus (have to look for the positive about 12 hour Fountain intervals!) is that eruptions most always last for 40 minutes, and 49, 48, 47, 46, and 44 minute eruptions have been recorded.  I am sad there will be no accounting of electronic times, I would really love to know how long this has been going on.  
Too bad no one is taking up the care of timers from Ralph.

Steve Eide came into the park for a week, and when he was here, there were no Morning's Thiefs before Fountain, a change from the earlier behavior.  Once Steve departed, the pre Fountain MT activity began again.  I do like when MT erupts before Fountain, as I then know I am pre eruption of Fountain, as the pool can fill up quite early though it does still fully drain after the eruption is over.

Another change is Morning's Pool.  Morning is full, sometime flowing into Morning's Thief and causing it to flood and just boil instead of erupt.  In the 5 years I have been geyser gazing, I have never seen Morning full and very blue like this, and it is lovely to look at while waiting for Fountain.

Bison hazing is in play now, so the travel in the West to Old Faithful corridor could be slowed by that process.  There are very few calves yet this season.  Lots of bears around, as always, thankfully I have not seen any while waiting for Fountain as I am often there alone.  Tourists numbers are increasing every day.

I post all my Fountain times, and often all my Morning's Thief times on Geysertimes. org.  Here's to another amazing Fountain today!

Maureen




Sent from my iPad