Observations for 2024 September 07


The call for Beehive's Indicator went out around 23:00. With all the long durations, that meant plenty of time to get properly dressed and prepared for a calm, well lighted eruption. Little Squirt was also active at that time.

I missed it, but it turns out that at the same time, Rift was erupting. Not sure when it started, or for how long it erupted, but the next morning at dawn I found Grand an empty crater, and Turban had what appeared to be a normal eruption, so the previous interval wasn't excessively long.

Came back out about 2-1/2 hours later and Grand was well into overflow. Then proceeded to wait for nearly four hours for the mid-day One Burst Grand Eruption. As with many recent eruptions, this one started with a series of boops over a period of about ten seconds.

2024-Sep-07:13:15:38 T1Q

 13:15:25	Vent Ovfl	-0m13s
 13:15:29	Boop	-0m09s
 13:15:37	Turban	-0m01s
 13:15:38	B1	--- d=10m49s
 13:18:19	Vent	2m40s
 13:26:28	P1	10m49s
 13:27:16	V&T Quit	11m37s

				     	ΣD=10m49s
	* * * * *
 09:48:59			d=04m13s 	
 10:07:05	Int: 18m06s	d=04m14s 	
 10:26:14	Int: 19m09s	d=03m58s 	
 10:47:54	Int: 21m40s	d=04m11s 	
 11:08:00	Int: 20m06s	d=04m22s 	
 11:26:54	Int: 18m54s	d=03m48s 	
 11:45:19	Int: 18m25s	d=04m17s 	
 12:04:43	Int: 19m24s	d=04m02s 	
 12:22:37	Int: 17m54s	d=03m56s 	
 12:39:59	Int: 17m22s	d=03m55s 	
 12:58:22	Int: 18m23s	d=03m41s 	
		     Turban: 17m14s

After lunch, caught the mid-day Beehive eruption. For some reason, the boardwalk was nearly empty, despite (or because) an Old Faithful eruption being due. Old Faithful had a large preplay midway during the eruption of the Indicator, which ended up causing both geysers to start erupting within moments of each other.

The Sawmill eruption I saw start in the morning finally ended shortly after Grand, so after about 2-1/2 hours, I went out to wait for Uncertain. Sawmill was first rising, then started to drop. About this time Uncertain began to splash up, and we could see the water level in the vent. This level kept getting higher as Sawmill dropped. Finally Uncertain started to overflow. This lasted about 15 seconds, at which point the eruption finally began.

The next interval for the One Burst Grand eruption was surprisingly short. I expected it in the dark, but it was light enough to record video of the eruption, which once again started with a prolonged series of boops.

2024-Sep-07:19:37:29 G1Q

 19:37:19	Boop	-0m10s
 19:37:29	B1	--- d=10m20s
 19:38:02	Vent Ovfl	0m32s
 19:38:06	Turban	0m36s
 19:40:53	Vent	3m23s
 19:47:49	P1	10m20s
 19:48:50	V&T Quit	11m20s

				     	ΣD=10m20s
	* * * * *
 19:18:02			d=04m24s 	
		      Grand: 19m27s

As I was leaving Uncertain earlier in the day, I heard the radio call announcing that Morning Geyser had erupted. With Grand erupting sooner than expected, we decided that it made sense to at least head out there and see what might be happening. There was a small group of people who had heard of the eruption and were hanging around there. Waited for the crescent moon to set, about 45 minutes, during which time nothing happened. Water level was out of sight in Fountain.

As we were leaving, we saw a light approach from the Paint Pots. Suddenly the light veered off the boardwalk at the Volcanic Tablelands sign and headed north toward the trees. I had the powerful flashlight and lit the person up. He immediately and quickly headed back to the walkway, then continued toward us. For the next half hour, he wandered around the area as if wanted us to ignore him. In any case, he finally drove off.

It's true that we harassed him, but I would have ignored him completely if he had stayed on the walkway. As it was, I wonder if he had a campsite over behind that sign. Too bad for him Morning erupted.