Geyser Skips Beat

Sun., July 5, 1998

Staff

Old Faithful

Few people sensed what seismometers recorded as a small earthquake near Yellowstone National Park in early January. But several geysers, including Old Faithful, have not been the same since.

“It’s the greatest change in Old Faithful in years,” said Ann Deutch, a Yellowstone naturalist.

The geyser does not spout like clockwork, but rather in intervals that vary based on the length and intensity of previous eruptions.

In the months before the earthquake, Old Faithful had been erupting once every 74 minutes, on the average. Since then, the span has been about 80 minutes.

More troublesome, however, is that the model rangers had used for predicting the eruptions no longer works. This winter, rangers timed 115 minutes between eruptions, an interval almost unheard of in the past.

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