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Observations for 2021 September 14


Decided that I needed an early morning Grand eruption, so headed out just as it was light enough to not need the headlight. Wasn't foggy like the previous dawn eruption I went out to see, but the walkways were slippery with frost. Waited for three Turban eruption intervals and got a short One Burst Eruption where Vent & Turban didn't quit.

Heard a report of possible Oblong eruption, so went out early to check it out. Shortly after noon I was able to see the empty crater. Also, in the background, I noticed that Solstice was in eruption, the first I've seen it this year. From the Bijou cage, I could see that there were wide runoff channels coming down from it, so it had been erupting for a while. On the way back, on the extreme northernmost part of Oblong's crater I noticed a small jet of water just above the rim.

The Giant Platform seemed to be in a marathon recovery mode, as Bijou was almost off. Every dozen seconds or so a few droplets could be seen coming from it, while the platform itself is as dry as I've seen it. No runoff from Mastiff, no damp spots in the catch basins, and little steam.

Back at Grand, I'd seen a Turban eruption as I tied up my bike. So I was surprised when I saw Turban start about 32 minutes later. Seemed like a Turban Delay Interval. The duration on Turban was well over five minutes, and the next Turban eruption had no overflow from Grand, which tends to confirm my suspicions. But then we got another delay, this one also well over thirty minutes. As the overflow started to look really good, we got a boop out of Grand, followed by over a minute of nothing happening. Then the waves built backup, and then we got a nicely explosive start to a One Burst Grand eruption. The duration was ten minutes and Vent & Turban quit.

Afterwards, went to check out Geyser Hill. Little Squirt had just started, and I wanted to observe the frying pans I'd seen back in May. It was obviously too warm and too soon for there to be any activity. About an hour later, it looked like there might be some steam coming from the main area, but that could have been just wishful thinking. Also on Geyser Hill, caught a weak Depression eruption that mostly had heavy upwelling and strong overflow until it suddenly dropped about 40cm.

Before sunset, the Sawmill Group was in a deep drain. As I was walking up the hill, Sawmill had a "Big Tardy" eruption with a duration of around 25 seconds.

Over at the Grand Group, Sput D was periodic. After about a half hour, that lead to West Triplet erupting, but not followed by Rift. Once the pool of Grand looked good, it took its time while the waves on the pool slowly got stronger. The sun had already set, but there was still enough glow in the sky to nicely illuminate the burst, which quit at 8m10s. It was steamy, and hard to tell at first, but we did get a nice, tall second burst. At around the 45 second mark, Grand didn't go into "Big Sawmill" mode. It went into "Big Tardy" mode. For about 15 seconds the height of the jets were 10 to 12 meters, at most. Then it finally quit, and for the next minute, it appeared there was water in the pool as the jetting from Vent got stronger and stronger. Finally, after about 90 seconds, the pool appeared empty, and Vent quickly died down and ceased entirely.