[Geysers] Geyser Report May 27 (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 PURPOSE, INCLUDING PUBLICATION IN THE SPUT OR TRANSACTIONS. It was another rainy, windy, snowy day in Yellowstone.  The roads were clear this morning, so I got into the park in time to see the early morning Till, with a closed interval of 10h06m.  I stayed at Till listening to the FRS radio reports, timing afterbursts, hoping to hall a call for Beehive's Indicator.  About 9:30 Maureen Edgerton came by to tell me Firehole Lake Drive had just opened.  I was midway through the interval following the 17th minor, so I decided to stay to finish the series.  A few minutes later the Resource Management rangers stopped to let me know they had opened Firehole Lake Drive.  (Bob also wanted to ask what it was I had been watching and I told him about Till's cycle.)  A few minutes later I heard Polly call Beehive's Indicator.  But I decided not to drive to the Upper Basin since the weather appeared to be yucky.  Till didn't have another minor, (total time from start of major to start of last minor was 2h40m) so I headed north toward Firehole Lake Drive.  But first this afternoon's eruption of Till. I had told Clark Murray and another family that Till had been quite regular with intervals just over 10 hours, so I expected it about 1600.  We drove over to watch the start of Till since, based on overflow at Great Fountain, we felt we were safe until 1630.  Of course, having told people how regular Till has been, it held, and held.  The other family left.  Clark and I waited it out until the flood started at an interval of 10h38m. Lemon Spring was full every time I drove past it today.  The water was a clear, light blue, and it looked fairly hot for this early in the season. As I rounded the road near Firehole Spring I could Narcissus and Pink Cone's steam clouds.  Maureen had Pink Cone ie at 0940.  I stayed until it ended at 1100.  The microbacterial build-up in the runoff channel near the road bubblers had built up enough that water is now running into the thumbhole.  There is no sign whatsoever of the old triangular shaped road bubbler.  The thumbhole started spitting water about half an hour before the eruption ended.  The frying pan area started having tiny bubbles about 1015.  By 1030 it was having vigorously bubbling about 2-3" high, which continued until about 1115, 15 minutes after Pink Cone ended.  At 1320 Pink Cone started having audible steam rushes, which happened again at 1327,l 1334, 1344, and 1401.  I left, but while I was waiting for White Dome this evening, I noticed Pink Cone ie at 1834 with strong mid-cycle splashing.  Water from the jets was visible from White Dome.  That activity continued until about 1843, for probably about 10 minutes total water. Maureen had Narcissus ie at 0949 and the eruption appeared to be a long duration eruption.  This observation was confirmed when the next eruption of Narcissus yielded an interval of about 2h45m.  (All observations for the Pink Cone group are made from the road.  When it is quiet, like it was today, I can hear water from Narcissus if I have the window open, but most of the time the window was closed to keep the snow and rain out of the pickup.)  While I was at Great Fountain this afternoon, a steam cloud from Narcissus rose for an interval just under 5 hours. Pink was steaming from 0955 until I left at 1410, but I never saw an eruption. Labial was also steaming and having periodic overflow when I left at 1410.  I mentioned this to Clark, so he went over there while I was waiting for Great Fountain overflow.  Clark saw Labial at 1457ne, then called to ask if it could have a second burst.  He got to see one of the rare two-burst eruptions where the second burst was at near full height (he estimated 20 feet).  I've seen follow-up bursts of 8-10 feet, but haven't seen one of the second burst eruptions since 1991. No activity was seen from Labial's Satellite Vents, but that's not surprising.  I've gone weeks without seeing any eruptions; then again I've seen eruptions 2 hours apart. Box Spring was its usual irregular self.  The 8 intervals I recorded varied from a minimum of 15 minutes to a maximum of 42 minutes, with a mean of 27 minutes. The seven Bead intervals I recorded varied from a minimum of 27 minutes to a maximum of 36 minutes, with a mean of 31 minutes. I stayed to watch the Pink Cone group instead of going over to watch Fountain today.  Maureen tried calling times for Morning's Thief to me, but the hill between the two of us blocked her transmission.  She gave me some of the times on one of her swings past Pink Cone--1114, 1139, 1201, 1239.  I heard Polly Panos call Morning's Thief at 1325, and Maureen later told me that one had closed a 10 minute interval between eruptions of Morning's Thief.  Maureen had commented to me the other day that it seemed like intervals between eruptions of Morning's Thief got shorter as they got closer to Fountain.  I did some preliminary analysis of the data and showed it to her quickly today.  I'll try to get it written up one of these evenings. Polly called Fountain ad 1329 and since I could see another snow squall moving in, I decided to skip this afternoon's Fountain.  Maureen and Polly told me the duration was only 33 minutes.  Because of the steam they didn't get the exact start of Twig, but Twig, as expected, did start sometime near the end of Fountain. At Great Fountain Maureen and I had a false overflow starting at 1431 that lasted about 5 minutes.  I had start of the next overflow at 1514.  Clark and I managed to get back to Great Fountain just in time to walk out onto the boardwalk to see the big boil at 1645, for an overflow time of 91 minutes.  Great Fountain paused for 9 minutes.  There was one jet out of the top of a burst that might have reached 140-150 feet, and produced a wave that came within a couple inches of reaching the grass.  Other than that the eruption didn't have much height.  It also didn't want to pause between the first and second and third.  Clark called it "sloppy"; Maureen called it disorganized.  The third burst did reward us with a nice blue burst bubble-gum pop and the fourth burst had two nice blue pops.  The fifth burst lasted less than two minutes, for total duration of 68 minutes, counting the pause. Every time I drove by and the two hours I spent sitting at White Dome, the south (right, or evil) vent of Gemini was merrily bubbling away.  Everyonce in awhile the north (or left) vent would give a bubble, but could never take control.  The water level in Pebble was about 2 feet down, the pool was filled with orange algae, and the water was a yucky brown color.  As usual, visitors were fascinated by the steam coming from Cave Spring.  I didn't hear any water activity, but I didn't have the windows open much either. White Dome:  I saw one eruption while waiting for Great Fountain's overflow.  Once overflow started at Great Fountain, I moved down to White Dome.  After an interval that had stretched to 60 minutes, I left to go to Till.  Later I saw two eruptions of White Dome 29 minutes apart during Great Fountain's eruption.  After Great Fountain finished, I again moved the pickup to White Dome, intending to get some durations on eruptions.  I sat there, and sat there, and sat there.  White Dome splashed three times.  Finally, after an interval of 1h34m White Dome erupted, with a duration of 1m43s.  I was tempted to stay to see if it would have a few shorter intervals, but was afraid I'd get sucked in to waiting through another long interval, so I left after having observed one "short" interval and two "long" intervals.  It will be interesting to see what the proportion of short and long intervals is tomorrow. While I was sitting at Pink Cone, four different sets of returning visitors stopped to ask me what I knew about Great Fountain.  I didn't recognize any of them, but they remembered me and the pickup from prior years.  I wasn't much help with Great Fountain since the only data from this season so far was yesterday afternoon's steam cloud sighting.  However, I was able to send two of them over for Fountain's eruption. Also, while Clark and I were waiting for Great Fountain's fourth burst, I noticed headlights pointing toward us from a vehicle at White Dome.  I thought we were going to get our first wrong way driver, but apparently they were just sitting in the vehicle to keep warm while watching Great Fountain from White Dome because they eventually turned around and drove out the correct direction. Lynn Stephens        		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20120527/8dd157e2/attachment.html>