[Geysers] Blue Bubble Article

[Bruce Jensen]

HI, Pat - A really nice idea.  My sense is that, in order to produce a blue bubble, a fountain geyser must have periods of calm in its pool to settle the internal motion, followed by a single massive steam bubble release that uniformly pushes up the mass of water evenly all at once before it can break differentially.  Strokkur does this by starting off from a calm pool and then emitting almost all of its energy in a single large burst at the very beginning.  I think Morning and Great Fountain do this repeatedly during their eruptions, with the effect most manifest in Morning, as it seems to genuinely quiet down between bursts.  Fountain does this too, but its pool is often in such turmoil that the burst-per-minute-of-eruption-time rate is somewhat smaller.  

Sawmill may get away with it at times too, but it appears to be somewhat more difficult with the smaller geysers...perhaps there is a ratio between pool volume and bubble size that must be optimized before the mass of water is enough to maintain coherence while the bubble rises inside the pool - perhaps a contest between water viscosity and bubble surface area or speed of rise.  Or, maybe smaller geysers tend to have fewer single large bubbles in favor of small bubble clusters that might cause more pool turmoil.
 
Bruce Jensen,
California, USA
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"[Yellowstone] is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the one place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time." ~ Thomas Wolfe


________________________________
 From: Pat Snyder <riozafiro at gmail.com>
To: Geyser List reports <geysers at lists.wallawalla.edu> 
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2013 9:00 AM
Subject: [Geysers] Blue Bubble Article
 

Hello Everyone.

This winter I would like to write an article for The Sput about geysers that make blue bubbles, including a brief summary of what causes some geysers to make them, and others not (there are many fountain-type geysers that do not make blue bubbles, but several do). Since I am rather unscientific, I would really appreciate being directed to any information about this subject that you folks may know about. You can respond to me off-list, if you like.

Also, I have heard that Strokkur (the supreme blue bubble maker) in Iceland was modified to consistently produce blue bubbles. Does anyone know more about this modification, and what it entailed? Or where I can find out more?

In addition, it would be fun to list and describe out-of-Yellowstone blue-bubble-making geysers. Any in New Zealand? Russia? Chile? I hope to include a list of reliable blue-bubble makers in the article.

All contributors will receive credit in the article, and thank you in advance!
Pat Snyder
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