Type Cone geyser Duration 3 to 10 minutes Phone +1 307-344-7381 | Frequency 45 to 125 minutes Elevation 2,240 m Country United States of America | |
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Name origin Named by Henry D. Washburn, September 18, 1870 Location Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park, Teton County, Wyoming Eruption height 106 feet (32 m) to 185 feet (56 m) Address Yellowstone National Park, WY 82190, USA Similar Yellowstone National Park, Yellowstone Lake, Mammoth Hot Springs, Grand Prismatic Spring, Geothermal areas of Yellowstone Profiles | ||
Old faithful geyser eruption yellowstone np
Old Faithful is a cone geyser located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, United States. Old Faithful was named in 1870 during the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition and was the first geyser in the park to receive a name. It is a highly predictable geothermal feature; since 2000, it has erupted every 44 to 125 minutes. The geyser, as well as the nearby Old Faithful Inn, is part of the Old Faithful Historic District.
Contents
Yellowstone beehive geyser and old faithful erupt together 7 19 2011 mp4
History
On the afternoon of September 18, 1870, the members of the Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition traveled down the Firehole River from the Kepler Cascades and entered the Upper Geyser Basin. The first geyser they saw was Old Faithful. In his 1871 Scribner's account of the expedition, Nathaniel P. Langford wrote:
In the early days of the park, Old Faithful was often used as a laundry:
Eruptions
More than 1,000,000 eruptions have been recorded. Harry Woodward first described a mathematical relationship between the duration and intervals of the eruptions in 1938. Old Faithful is not the tallest or largest geyser in the park; those titles belong to the less predictable Steamboat Geyser. The reliability of Old Faithful can be attributed to the fact that it is not connected to any other thermal features of the Upper Geyser Basin.
Eruptions can shoot 3,700 to 8,400 US gallons (14,000 to 32,000 L) of boiling water to a height of 106 to 185 feet (32 to 56 m) lasting from 1 1⁄2 to 5 minutes. The average height of an eruption is 145 feet (44 m). Intervals between eruptions can range from 35 to 120 minutes, averaging 66.5 minutes in 1939, slowly increasing to an average of 90 minutes apart today, which may be the result of earthquakes affecting subterranean water levels. The disruptions have made earlier mathematical relationships inaccurate, but have actually made Old Faithful more predictable in terms of its next eruption.
The time between eruptions has a bimodal distribution, with the mean interval being either 65 or 91 minutes, and is dependent on the length of the prior eruption. Within a margin of error of ±10 minutes, Old Faithful will erupt either 65 minutes after an eruption lasting less than 2 1⁄2 minutes, or 91 minutes after an eruption lasting more than 2 1⁄2 minutes.
Measurement
Between 1983 and 1994, four probes containing temperature and pressure measurement devices and video equipment were lowered into Old Faithful. The probes were lowered as deep as 72 feet (22 m). Temperature measurements of the water at this depth was 244 °F (118 °C), the same as was measured in 1942. The video probes were lowered to a maximum depth of 42 feet (13 m) to observe the conduit formation and the processes that took place in the conduit. Some of the processes observed include fog formation from the interaction of cool air from above mixing with heated air from below, the recharge processes of water entering into the conduit and expanding from below, and entry of superheated steam measuring as high as 265 °F (129 °C) into the conduit.