Cool Water May Be Slowing Old Faithful

Fluctuations in the temperature of water seeping into the conduit of Old Faithful could be responsible for the changing intervals of the geyser’s eruptions, a geologist said.

In the first video probe of the park’s best known thermal feature, Susan Kieffer, head of geological sciences at the University of British Columbia, recently lowered a specially designed video camera about 45 feet into the geyser’s conduit.

A relatively cool flow of water into the conduit 24 feet below the surface may come from high-level ground water, she wrote in the latest edition of Yellowstone Science, a publication of scientists conducting research in the Yellowstone area.

“We speculate that it may be changes in this recharge of cooler water that control the changing intervals of Old Faithful - at present, the intervals are lengthening, which might suggest more cold water at the present time than in the past,” she said.

Early this year, Old Faithful was erupting about every 78 minutes, up from about every 75 minutes last year, said Rick Hutchinson, a Yellowstone research geologist.

The video recording of the cameras’ journey into Old Faithful is on display at the Old Faithful Visitor Center.