[Geysers] Kamchatka Geyser Plumbing Video

[Davis, Brian L.]

Karen Low wrote:

> Researchers put a camera down geysers in Kamchatka:
> http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/4121-geyser-video-shows-how-they-work.html

Interesting video. Also interesting camera gear... big!. The article in Geology is here for those who want to look up the reference:

http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2013/01/25/G33366.1.abstract

Reading over just the abstract (unfair, but I can't get the article until maybe later this week), I'm not sure how applicable these are to Yellowstone. In the news interviews, the author seems to think this applies to Yellowstone with the plumbing in glacial moraines. That sounds good... except for the one look inside Old Faithful (*very* different geometry), and numerous depth-temperature measurements. I don't doubt that you can have geysers in complex convoluted conduits... but extending that model to cover everything (or even "most geysers") seems a real stretch.

That geysers are not pure vertical conduits I'd strongly agree with... and from my own observations, bubble traps can play a significant role. But it seems a big jump to preferring this model over others (the two I assume they refer to in the abstract are a single vertical conduit a'la Bunsen, and the more recent "numerous small interconnected spaces" model (which, actually, I'm not sure is that different).

Hmm. *really* got to get that paper. And then work up some more models, when it gets slightly warmer.

-- 
Brian Davis