[Geysers] Fountain Complex

[Lynn Stephens]

THIS POST IS FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THE READERS OF THIS LISTSERV AND IS NOT TO BE REPRODUCED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE, INCLUDING PUBLICATION IN ANY GOSA PUBLICATIONS SUCH AS THE SPUT AND/OR TRANSACTIONS. I spent most of yesterday at the Fountain Complex, and part of today.  As has been reported, Fountain's intervals vary from about 11 to about 13 hours, with durations running from the mid 30 to mid 40 minute range.  Morning's Thief is having independent eruptions prior to the start of Fountain.  Yesterday evening the first eruption of Morning's Thief occurred 3h15m before Fountain's eruption (thank you to Craig--sorry I don't know his last name--for getting the start time on the evening Fountain), which was also 9h40m after the preceding eruption of Fountain.  What surprised me was the low level of the water in Fountain prior to Fountain's eruptions. The water level in Fountain appears to be about 20-24 inches below Fountain's rim when Fountain erupts.  It is not coming out the "neck" or notch at the north end of Fountain's crater.  It is not high enough to implement what John Muller taught me a couple decades ago--"pick a rock, any rock, then when that rock gets covered, pick another rock, so you can see that the water level is rising."  The water level just isn't high enough to get out there to start covering up the rocks.  It's not even high enough inside the crater to start covering up the "bumps" at the north end to create islands, which then get covered as the water level rises far enough to start moving out of the crater up onto the sinter area.    I've only seen three starts of Fountain, but each time the water in Morning appeared to be about 6-10 inches below where it would need to be for Morning to start overflowing toward Fountain.  For those of you who were here in August 1991, the water level in Morning at the time Fountain starts is about the same level as it was when Morning would erupt during its August 1991 active phase.   Twig is starting at the end of every Fountain, and based on one day's observation only, it is not having any eruptions between the two eruptions that start at the end of Fountain.  One data point--duration was 1h43m. All starts of Spasm's eruptions that I have seen start with milky, slightly grayish water.  After Spasm has erupted long enough and has created a pool, the pool is blue, and fairly clear.  Durations have been ABOUT 40 to 60 minutes. As Steve Eide noted, Super Frying Pan does not appear to exert much, if any, control over Jet.  Super Frying Pan's duration have all been short--6-7 minutes, so far. Back when Fountain used to have "long" intervals, including 1991 when the average interval was about 7 1/2 hours, Jet would stop erupting for a few hours after Fountain's eruption.  Jet did not have any pause yesterday.  (I didn't stay around long enough today to find out whether Jet had any sort of pause.) Bearclaw's intervals are generally 17-19 minutes, except during Fountain's eruption when they drop to 15 minutes, and for awhile after the start of Twig/end of Fountain.  (I don't have any data on length of Bearclaw's quiet period.) Clepsydra did not pause after yesterday morning's eruption of Fountain.  Craig reported it did pause after yesterday evening's eruption.  It paused for about 4 1/2 minutes after this morning's eruption.  I did not stay for the end of Fountain's eruption this evening. The north end of the Fountain Paint Pots are really, really, really dried up, cracked and bone dry.  Even the south end is starting to dry up already.  There's only a fairly small area of thin soupy water in the center, and almost no mud beiing thrown up into the air. On a non-geyser note--yesterday evening Maureen called on the radio to warn us the traffic jam on the corner leading up to Fountain Paint Pots was due to a grizzly bear.  At 8:45 when Polly was ready to leave, I left with her because I didn't want to be out there alone near and after dark with a grizzly bear in the area.  The traffic jam had cleared and the bear had moved on by the time we got to the parking lot, but I didn't know which direction it had gone, so I still decided to head for West Yellowstone instead of waiting for Fountain. Lynn Stephens    		 	   		  
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