POTD: Steamboat Geyser

From 2018 09 11 Yellowstone

Today's photo-of-the-day is of Old Faithful's less well known relative, Steamboat Geyser. There are a few facts that differentiate Steamboat from Old Faithful. One, it's the world's tallest currently-active geyser (300 feet, compared to 185 feet for Old Faithful). Two, its eruptions are very irregular, with intervals between eruptions ranging from about three days to about fifty years. That's right. Steamboat didn't erupt at all from 1911 to 1961. But it's erupted about 50 times in the last twelve months. So see it now. When it sleeps, it really sleeps. Three, Steamboat's major eruptions can last as long as 40 minutes, followed by hours of continuous minor eruptions. The day we visited, there was a major eruption at 5 am, and what you see here is what Steamboat was still doing eight hours later, continuously. We didn't wait for it to finish. Eventually, we just left while it was still spouting.