Geyser Watch

Jake Young, the developer and owner of Geyser Times .org, visited Yellowstone on opening weekend and witnessed a beautiful evening eruption of North Goggles Geyser along with some good splashes from Goggles Spring. He mentioned both thermal features were bubbling and boiling during the 18th eruption of Lion Geyser, and reported there was at least one more eruption in the series from Lion.

Opening day is just around the corner and as much as I’d love to be there, it’s not going to happen this year. However, it doesn’t mean that I won’t be there in my mind – thinking about the people lined up in their cars in West Yellowstone at the gate – thinking about when I’ll be able to head through one of the gates myself.

I’ll also be waiting for any reports to come in on what people see. This year, I imagine most geyser gazers will head to Geyser Hill to take a look at North Goggles. It appears to have reactivated – with having  major (taller and longer eruptions) and minor (short in all respects) eruptions as well as intermediate eruptions that fall in between. It has erupted occasionally in the past few years, but nothing that looked like it was in any way predictable or worth the time to wait. However, now it is. The last time it was active enough to spend time there was in 2004. The reactivation this year started on February 12 and 13, 2012. Click here for a PDF of observations from those two days.

So, it’s time to review a bit of information on North Goggles – creating this post helps me get my mind around all of it.

How to get there:

North Goggles Geyser is in the Lion Group on Geyser Hill:

If you head to Geyser Hill from the River Bridge nearest to Old Faithful Lodge and get to the Y in the boardwalk, take the left, or lower loop and head past Beehive (unless the Indicator is erupting) and on to the Lion Group. Just a short ways beyond Lion is the junction where the Geyser Hill Loop lets you take off farther down basin toward the Sawmill Geyser area and Grand Geyser. Right there at that corner you’ll find North Goggles Geyser.

What it’s been doing in the past few years:

Before this recent activity, water would rise simultaneously in both Goggles Spring and North Goggles Geyser, and when full and overflowing, both would pulse slightly before the water began to drain back down into the vents. This cycle took about 10 minutes or so to complete before repeating.

What it may be doing now:

North Goggles Geyser and Goggles Spring are both a part of the Lion Group – a group consists of thermal features that have shown a strong connection between them. North Goggles seems to be erupting during a series of eruptions by Lion geyser. So, if I were there on the boardwalk by Lion, I’d first of all keep track of Lion – which has been erupting every 1-3 days (the overnight eruptions usually aren’t reported). It has a series of eruptions which means multiple eruptions spaced apart, in this case, by about an hour (except a bit longer after the first or initial eruption in the series which is larger and longer than the others, so it takes it a bit longer to recharge itself). If it erupts many times during the series (14 eruptions were seen one day recently), it will likely take a few days before the next series starts.

And when a series is happening with Lion, I’d be out there, keeping an eye on North Goggles and watching the cycles (and noting the observations in my field notes). In the past, a longer sustained overflow happens before an eruption (major or minor) of North Goggles. In past issues of the GOSA Sput and discussions this year on the Geyser Listserve email list, it seems at least in the past a signal of an eruption to come was long overflows – the longer the overflow, the greater hope of a major eruption. Some of these overflows were more than an hour, and others about 20 minutes. And in 2002, there was also an eruption of Goggles Spring accompanying a major by North Goggles – the first known eruption of this thermal feature.

Knowing the past behavior is helpful, but until people are out there on the boardwalk, taking notes and reporting what they see, there’s no way to know for certain if the same behavior is happening now. But thanks to the generous folks at Canon and the Yellowstone Park Foundation, we have a heads up on what’s happening this year thanks to the addition of webcams watching Geyser Hill – and also thanks to Geyser Time .org (happy 1 year anniversary!) we can see the record of webcam observations. And thanks to those sharing videos, we can see the past behavior and some recordings of the live streaming webcam. Here’s one from the other day:

Many thanks to all who have shared their knowledge – feel free to add comments of anything I may have left out (as well as any corrections or questions – they are always welcome).

Do you have observation notes to share? Add them in on the comments on the North Goggles Geyser page!