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Observations for 2022 August 22


An early morning eruption of Rift meant that it was unlikely for Grand to have a short interval. But I did want to be there for when it ended. But first, spent an hour at Fan & Mortar watching some sort of weak cycle where Gold and High never really turned on, and Angle just blipped a few times. Almost like it was trying to go into a pause.

I also checked East Sentinel, and all the grass growing in the runoff and splash zones showed that there hadn't been any eruption this year. The formations on the river side were plenty wet.

Finally went over to the Grand area, where Rift was still erupting. After a couple of Turban intervals, there was a Turban Delay. Before the second Turban eruption after that, Rift finally quit at least five hours after it started. During all the time I was there, Sput D was erupting also, and it quit when Rift did. About a half hour later, Sput D splashed a bit, and then started having eruptions like the ones I've been seeing previous days.

The delay ended up being seven Turban intervals. After the sixth Turban eruption, during a Sput D eruption, Rift began to show some heavy steam, looking like it does just before it starts. The Grand eruption had two bursts, with the pause lasting nearly a minute.

When I left, Belgian Pool was high, with Crystal Spring overflowing and drowning Slurp, which was actually in full slurp mode instead of being a wet fumarole.

But when I returned to the area for the next Grand, both of those features were well down, maybe as much as 20cm. Bulger was noisy but during the Grand wait it never erupted.

That Grand wait was long, as after three Turban eruptions there was a Turban Delay followed by seven more intervals. Once again, we got two bursts from Grand. The first burst ended at 8m22, which is short enough to be a One Burst Eruption, but Grand quickly had the second. The whole eruption lasted less than 10 minutes, and Vent & Turban actually continued.

It was also a night for idiocy. First it was a noisy, loud family walking to Morning Glory and back shining flashlights everywhere and shouting at each other. Then it was someone riding their skateboard down the walkway from Castle. The steady headlight and sound on the walkway made it appear to be a bicycle.