1.0 Literature Review
A geyser refers to a hot spring that occasionally due geographical processes and difference in pressure erupts hot water and steam in the air. The Old Faithful Geyser at Yellowstone National Park , Wyoming is one of the most famous geyser in the world. Given the fame of this geyser, it receives visitors from various parts of the world. For convenience of time, the national park service have erected some sign at the site to try help visitors predict the time for the occurrence of the next eruption.
The Old Faithful Geyser is not the biggest or most regular geyser in Yellowstone but it is the biggest regular geyser. It has been erupting in the same fashion throughout the recorded history. In fact becoming oneof the most the moststudied geyser in the history.
In trying to predict the next eruption time, researchers make use of the duration of the current eruption. The duration is timed from the first heavy surge which lifts water skywards at the start of the eruption until the last small splash above the cone at the end. Previous studies show that, a 2 minute eruption results in an interval of about 55 minutes.
There have existed various misconceptions with respect to this geyser; the first being that Old Faithful plays hourly, this misconception came about during the 1870, Washburn expedition where one of the members reported that that the geyser played hourly and so each day there are usually about 21 to 23 eruptions. Another misconception is that the geyser is slowing down, the geyser still holds the same range of 35-120 minutes.
Of major importance is how researchers interpret the eruption time. At what point should a researcher take interest for them to at least predict the next eruption? Once the eruption starts, the jetting will grow, stop, grow again and in two or three of these steps, reach
