Geyser Notes

Unicode U+2668

I was browsing through my copy of Volcanoes of the World when I came across an interesting tidbit that led to other interesting tidbits. This book is subtitled "a regional directory, gazetteer and chronology of volcanism during the last 10,000 years." It was last published in 1994, so it's not totally out of date.

The main body is a listing of all the world's volcanoes, each given its own ID code and a single line summary, followed by every known eruption, each in its own line. So the information there is pretty compact, and requires a key to decipher what all the symbols and characters and numbers men. The inside cover contains that key, and there I noticed the first tidbit of interest. This book is based on a work done in 1951: the 22 volume "Catalog of Active Volcanoes of the World", known as CAVW. Since I've not seen that, I have no idea how they filled that many volumes, assuming each volume is not more than a few pages. But in the chart for "Eruptive Characteristics", listed is not only the codes for the book, but those used in CAVW.

Thanks to computers and the limitations of the ASCII character set, most tables these days limit themselves to a small set of characters. That wasn't the case in 1951, and the CAVW used a lot of specialized little icons instead. Some of these have made it into the Unicode character sets, and more on that later. But what caught my eye was that one of the eruptive types listed is "Fumarolic activity", along with the CAVW symbol, a circle with a double headed arrow pointing up. That made me curious, were there symbols for geysers, hot springs and other hydrothermal activity? Let's find out.

Some online searching for a list of CAVW symbols turned up nothing, but I did discover something else. There's a Unicode symbol for "hot springs." Unicode is an attempt to encode all sorts of standard alphabets and symbols, leaving how they are displayed up to the computers involved. But inside the definitions are just about every math or typographic symbol you've ever encountered, and many more: Chess set symbols, arrows, and other decorative items used in printing. Seems that the "hot springs" a standard symbol used on Japanese maps and that's reason enough to add it. And here it is (assuming you are using a Unicode compliant browser):

♨ ♨

I also found that the fumarolic activity arrow exists, too:

⥉ ⥉

To use them yourself, on webpages or anyplace where an attempt to display HTML is made, just use "♨" for the hot springs, or "⥉" for the fumaroles. I still need a symbol for geyser, though.

Posted by HKoenig at 10:08 AM | Permalink

Speaking of geysers on film, I thought I'd toss out a few other places where geothermal features become part of a movie's set or otherwise make an appearance.

One prominent example is the John Wayne film North to Alaska. None of it was filmed there, with the Wayne character's mining shack located at Hot Creek, Calif. instead. In almost every outdoor scene you can see one or more springs sputtering away, and their sounds are prominent in the audio background.

The terraces at Mammoth make an appearance as the planet Vulcan in the first Star Trek movie. At that point, I usually tune out because I've seen all the special effects that I care about.

There is a winter scene of Charleton Heston as an 1830s fur trapper climbing around Castle Geyser in The Mountain Men.

I'm sure there are more, and will try to add to this list as I hear about them or see them. The imdb.com database lists a number of films with Yellowstone as a location, but no details on what or where in Yellowstone was filmed. There are a lot of silent shorts from around 1901 listed, and it would be interesting to know more about them, and how to get access to them.

And then there's all the cartoon characters from Yogi Bear to Elmer Fudd who've been shot out of Old Faithful, but I'll leave building that list to someone else.

Posted by HKoenig at 07:57 PM | Permalink

Here's a little something I'd love to bring on a hike to Shoshone:

Cheeseburger in a can

Here's a first hand report from someone who actually tried it.

Would definitely be a change of pace from the usual Cup-o-Noodles I usually bring. And no carrots to escape.

Posted by HKoenig at 10:28 AM | Permalink

The migration home (every migration is a round trip) was boring and almost uneventful. As always, I packed up the night before and then left before dawn at 04:45. Took me 13 hours and 22 minutes to travel 752.9 miles. Not too bad considering there were stops along the way, a few passes to climb, 30 miles in the park, and the last thirteen miles taking 40 minutes along the beautiful West Lake Sammammish Parkway into beautiful downtown Redmond.

One small incident at the very beginning. On the way out, encountered the first oncoming vehicle north of Nez Perce Creek. Was still getting used to not having driven for 6 weeks, and the lighting was such that it was still hard to see details despite moonlight and dawn. Came around a curve and wondered what was it about the road that didn't look right. It was a large elk standing in the other lane, just sort of staring stupidly at me (about as stupidly as I was staring at him as I approached). I swerved around, and that was it. Like I said, other than the radio stopping working when I left the last rest stop (Elk Heights, hmmm...) it was perhaps one of the most boring trips I've had on that route.

Posted by HKoenig at 09:25 AM | Permalink

So when I arrived yesterday, I checked in moments before Old Faithful erupted. No one at the desk, so I breezed right through to my cabin. By the time I'd unpacked and run most of my errands, I decided I could spend a little time in the Lower Ham's parking lot. As I turned the corner from the main road to the parking lot, there was another Faithful eruption just starting. I just find the timing interesting. (Not that I'm superstitious.)

Because I spoke too soon in the last posting. It seems at that point, or on the drive between there and my cabin, the power steering fluid reservoir on my truck developed a leak, with fluid dropping onto the alternator and spraying all over the engine compartment. So for the next few hours, all I could really do is sop up the leak as the fluid drained, and wait for the repair shop at the Upper Gas station to open on Friday.

And it's also somehow appropriate that the first eruption that I see from the start would be Grand as I'm tying up my bicycle at the Castle bikerack. A one burst in a snow shower.

Posted by HKoenig at 10:53 AM | Permalink

So I completed my migration back to the Park.

Migration involves travel, but is not the same as "traveling". Mere travel is just going from one place to another. Migration is repeated traveling over the same path to the same destination and back to the starting point. Unlike ordinary travel, a migration also includes the expectation of the same events with the same outcome. You aren't inclined to take a side trip on a whim while migrating, because that's will only delay your arrival at your destination. If you need a road atlas, it's not a migration.

A migration is also infrequent. Do it often enough, and it qualifies as a "commute".

So how did my migration go?

Except for the frequent rain showers (which turned to snow at the Old Faithful area) and the strong headwinds in the upper Madison Valley, it was the most uneventful trip that I can remember. The time flew by, and absolutely nothing went wrong. Even after all these years, very little seems to have changed along the route, other than Missoula has continued to bloat out to the northwest.

Now it's time unpack and get everything set up and to rest up for a full day of geyser activity tomorrow.

Posted by HKoenig at 05:06 PM | Permalink