[Geysers] Geyser Report May 23, Stephens

[Lynn Stephens]

THIS REPORT IS FOR THE PERSONAL USE OF THE READERS OF THIS LISTSERV AND IS NOT TO BE REPRODUCED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSES, INCLUDING PUBLICATION IN EITHER THE SPUT OR THE TRANSACTIONS. With the exception of about 75 minutes when I made a trip to the Upper Basin to take care of some business and check out the $5 customer appreciation items this year (ball caps, coffee mugs, stuffed animals, and white t-shirts), I spent the day at Fountain.  I sat through wave after wave of snowstormsi was all bundled up and wrapped in my oilcloth poncho, wearing my heavy Caribou snowboots.  I watched in amazement as visitor after visitor walked by in sandals, shorts, and short-sleeved shirts.  I'm certain they thought I was crazy when I told them, yes, I was planning to stay until it erupted, but then I thought they were crazy for walking around in a snowstorm without adequate clothing. When I drove up at 5:30 this morning, Twig was ie, so I figured Fountain hadn't done a short interval overnight.  When Twig stopped just before 6 am, I guesstimated Fountain had erupted sometime around 3:30 am or so.  Even without knowing how long Fountain's duration had been, I knew I was in for a long wait and would collect a lot of data on Jet, Bearclaw, Spasum, and Super Frying Pan today. As it turned out, I only saw two eruptions of Super Frying Pan--one started at 1227 and lated 14 minutes, the first duration in excess of 7 minutes that I've seen since I started watching the complex on Saturday, the 19th.  The next eruption started at 1559.  I was trying to find ways to stay out of Super Frying Pan and Jet's steam clouds so I could watch Fountain, and forgot to record the stop of Super Frying Pan.  It is possible I could have missed Super Frying Pan when I took a 15 minute break to make a trip to the parking lot, but when I returned there was no water or steam in Super Frying Pan's runoff channel, so I think it is highly unlikely that I missed an eruption. Spasm:  I saw three Spasm starts--one at 0841ns, which lasted just over an hour, one at 1141 (I=~3h00m), which lasted just under 75 minutes, and one at 1546 (I=4h04m), three minutes before Fountain started erupting (duration undeterminable because the eruption was drowned out by Fountain). Bearclaw:  Did not erupt between my arrival at 5:30 and Twig's end, which is consistent with Bearclaw running out of water at some point during Twig's eruption.  Bearclaw resumed eruptions at 0652, with an eruption that consisted of a few splashes and lasted no more than 40 seconds.  When I returned at 08:30, Bearclaw was erupting at 16-18 minutes intervals with durations of 3 to 4 minutes.  I stopped timing it around 13:30 because it was regular, my hands were getting cold, and my logbook was getting wet. Twig:  As already noted, Twig was ie at 05:30 and ended shortly before 6 am.  Twig started its next eruptoin at 1622, 33 minutes after the start of Fountain.  I didn't stay to get a duration on the afternoon eruption of Twig. Fountain:  Erupted at 1549 and the eruption lasted 42 minutes.  I think the next eruption will be sometime between 3 am and 5 am, so I may catch the end of Twig again, or I may just ignore the Fountain Complex until early afternoon and do something else. Jet:  Jet's intervals were irregular.  Here they are:  (mm:ss 11:25, 9:27, 11;01, 11:45, break in recording13:17, 11:21, 11:25, 15:15, 9:49, 13:12, 9:58, 7:43, 12:16, 17;15, 10:00, 10:07, 18:02, break in recording13:35, 20:59, 14:38, Super Frying Pan started, 15;22, 15:10, 8:22, 11:54, 10:11, 10:01, 7:25, 8:23, 9:00, 7:58., 9:19, 15:38, 12:05, 9:52, 12:10, 18:03, 9:03, 13:25, Fountain started, 6:03, then every 1-3 minutes during Fountain. Maureen started to head for West in mid-afternoon because the snow was starting to accumulate.  Thankfully a traffic jam caused her to turn around.  She gave me plenty of moral support during the last hour of my vigil.  The sky cleared and the wind was in the right direction for most of Fountain's eruption, so we saw plenty of blue.   Lynn Stephens 		 	   		  
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