[Geysers] Geyser Report 6/8/2015 (Stephens)

[Lynn Stephens]

As usual this year, I spent most of the day on Firehole Lake Drive although I did make a trip to the Upper Basin for the first time since Memorial Day weekend.  I drove up hoping to see the afternoon eruption of Grand.  I did catch part of the eruption as I drove over the overpass coming into the Old Faithful area, so I used the trip to do some gift shopping, fill my magic cup, and talk with a few gazers.
 
When I arrived at Gemini/Pebble this morning at 0545, Pebble had almost reached overflow, which generally takes about 4 hours.  At 6:05 Pebble was overflowing down the hill.  Gemini finally started its series 5 hours later, at 11:08.  The interval from initial to initial was probably about 9 hours, well in excess of the 7h43m interval that was the longest closed interval from initial to initial that I have observed.  Rocco commented that Pebble had been overflowing prior to 4 of the 5 Gemini initial eruptions he has seen this year.  My observations are split almost 50/50--17 of 35 yes Pebble was overflowing, 18 of 35 no Pebble was not overflowing prior to the start.  I have not observed any correlation between the number of eruptions in a series and the subsequent (or preceding) interval.  For example, I have seen four series consisting of 7 eruptions.  
                 Interval Preceding    Subsequent Interval
                       4h55m                          Unknown
                      Unknown                       4h28m
                      Unknown                       3h52m
                      5h40m                            7h43m
(The mean interval from initial to initial as of yesterday was 4h42m.)
    No spitting from Crack was seen today.
 
Yesterday afternoon I watched a Pink Cone start that was quite explosive.  Maureen, Barbara, and I had been watching for awhile without seeing any spitting or splashing from Pink Cone.  The first surge we saw out of the cone went straight up into an eruption.  Today's start (interval of 22h49m) was more traditional in that it surged about a foot or so, dropped down, surged again, then took off on the third surge.
 
I went over for this evening's eruption of Fountain and was lucky enough to see an eruption of Honeycomb while we were waiting.  Twig started near the end of Fountain, which was nice.  Both times I've gone out to Fountain recently, PEANOT has been completely drained.
      
Today was the first day without any rain.  The sun was intense this afternoon.  While Bill and Carol Beverly and I were at Fountain this afternoon we noticed several children with pink legs and arms.   A bison herd came through the Fountain Paint Pot area while we were waiting.  One family with several children went up to the top of the stairs leading down from the overlook to watch the bison.  One boy about 6 or 7 stayed down on the boardwalk.  When Jet erupted the boy started yelling at his family "Jet is erupting.  Jet is erupting."  When they didn't pay attention, he continued, "Jet is erupting.  I'm NOT KIDDING, Jet is erupting."  By the time the family realized what he was saying and started down to look at Jet, of course, it stopped.  He was disappointed they hadn't seen it.  They started to read the pamphlet out loud.  I interreputed to exlain Jet was erupting about every 7 minutes.  When the mother asked how I knew that because the pamphlet said something else, I told her I had been writing down the times so I knew what it was doing now.  I also added we expected Fountain to erupt in the next half hour.  The family stayed.  After they finished watching Fountain, they came over to thank me.  The father said they had been here 5 days and Fountain was one of the best things they had seen.  They were on their way out of the park and it was a fabulous final experience.
 
Signs are now in place for Twig, Fountain (YEAH no more Fountain and Morning sign), Spasm, Clepsydra, and Jet.  All the signs, except Jet, are attached to railing boards.  Jet is attached to the boardwalk.  Placement of the Clepsydra sign is on the top rail board; Spasm's sign is to the right of it on the second rail board.  Hopefully there will be a lot fewer pictures of Clepsydra labeled as Spasm with the new sign placement.
 
I saw my first elk calf today.  There is still a bison herd hanging around Fountain Flats.  This evening the herd came up the hill toward the boardwalk between Fountain Paint Pots and the overlook, started to cross the boardwalk, then came toward the overlook.  The herd seemed leery of the new railing as it came down the hill on the north side of the boardwalk, then walked out across Twig toward Morning, down the hill, and ended up near the south end of the Kaleidoscope Group.  I sure hope today's heat causes them to move on up to Mary Mountain.
 
Lynn Stephens
 		 	   		  
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