[Geysers] Anemone Questions

[Ralph Taylor]

I do not seem to have digital images of Anemone, and have not had time to
dig through thousands of slides.  The third vent is currently sintered
closed.  It is in a line through the south and north vents, and is the
deepest of the indentations in the rings of geyserite around "Big Anemone",
about two or three feet to the northwest of Big Anemone.  The last time I
looked (during the summer of 2011 while cleaning the thermal features on
Geyser Hill) the old third vent was covered by smooth white sinter and it
had trapped some sandy particles.  Some 15 or 20 years ago there was a patch
of dark microbial mat that occasionally bubbled during eruptions, but I have
not seen that for many years.

 

If you stand on the boardwalk at the point nearest the vent of Big Anemone
the location of the third vent is at about the four o'clock position.

 

Marler, in the Inventory of Thermal Features Of the Firehole River Geyser
Basins And Other Selected Areas of Yellowstone National Park notes that

 

Anemone consists of three small and closely spaced vents.  All are in a
direct line and lie in a north south direction.

 

He describes the historical activity as follows:

 

During the early period I observed Anemone the eruptions occurred about
every 20 minutes.  There was a chain-like procedure.  Eruptions were
initiated by the water rising simultaneously in the central and northern
vents.  Almost immediately water would drop in the north vent, with the
central one erupting to a height of about 3 feet.  During this activity
which lasted scarcely more than 20 seconds, the north vent would drink the
water being erupted from the central vent.  Following cessation of the
middle vent's activity the south vent would erupt to a height of from 2 to 3
feet for less than a minute.  This type of function apparently had
characterized it since at least the 1920s.

 

As far as I know, intervals have been in the 9-12 minute range for Big
Anemone since the 1980s at least, with numerous complicated patterns of
interactions between the two currently active vents.  I described several of
these in my paper in the GOSA Transactions Volume I.

 

Ralph Taylor

From: geysers-bounces at lists.wallawalla.edu
[mailto:geysers-bounces at lists.wallawalla.edu] On Behalf Of Micah Kipple
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2013 11:56 PM
To: geysers at lists.wallawalla.edu
Subject: [Geysers] Anemone Questions

 

Hi All





So Will Boekel has just called to my attention something rather interesting
to me. We both have reason to believe that Anemone Geyser (or at least Big
Anemone) may have gone through a dormancy of an unspecified amount of time
september-october of 1977. The post that is the most relevant to this is a
post on 8/3/77 in the log book that says "Anemone had it's first eruption
since fall in the last day or two." On 8/4 there was another logbook entry
for it says "Welcome back!" I find this intriguing. Since Anemone hasn't had
much fame throughout the parks history something pretty drastic, such as a
dormancy that could have lasted from a couple days, to a couple weeks. My
question is: what do you think they mean by "fall?" If any of you have any
answers or speculation to this, please let me know, I would love to try to
figure this out. 





Also, while I'm on the topic of Anemone. Does anyone know of, or have any
pictures of the West Vent of Anemone? I know it's long dead. But I'm curious
as to it's location and what it's eruptive behavior was. If you have any
knowledge of this, I would love to know! Thanks guys! 

 

Micah Kipple

 

Volcanoes are God's Fireworks

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