Boulder, Colorado, USA – In the June issue of GSA Today, Kieran O'Hara of the University of Kentucky and E.K. Esawi of Elizabethtown Community & Technical College propose a new model for the eruption of Yellowstone Park's Old Faithful geyser.
The model, which replicates the geyser's eruption interval for 2000-2011, is based on three stages of convective boiling in the conduit. The preplay phase, which triggers the main eruption, plays a key role in determining the eruption interval, the duration of which is the sum of the preplay time and the time to uppermost (stage three) boiling. The model reproduces the geyser's bimodal eruption pattern in which long and short eruption durations are followed, respectively, by long and short eruption intervals.
ARTICLE
Model for the eruption of the Old Faithful geyser, Yellowstone National Park
Kieran D. O'Hara, Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences (emeritus) University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506, USA; and E.K. Esawi, Division of Physical Sciences, Elizabethtown Community & Technical College, Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701, USA. Pages 4-9, http://www.geosociety.org/gsatoday/archive/23/6/article/i1052-5173-23-6-4.htm.
GSA Today articles are open access online; for a print copy, please contact Kea Giles. Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GSA Today in articles published. This press release was written by GSA Today science editor Damian Nance and managing editor Kea Giles.
Journal
GSA Today