How long has old faithful been erupting

Also consider visiting Yellowstone during the shoulder seasons, or at winter when you could very well get a private eruption viewing all your own.

More tips about avoiding the crowds. Order our free stunning Yellowstone Trip Planner filled with an inspiring itinerary, gorgeous photographs and everything you need to plan your dream vacation. Get inspired with tips about where to go and what to see on your national park vacation, delivered right to your inbox.

Unsubscribe anytime by clicking the link at the bottom of your email. Get Our Newsletter Get inspired with tips about where to go and what to see on your national park vacation, delivered right to your inbox. In the months following each of these events, the interval between eruptions at Old Faithful increased and maintained a new, longer time period. For example, prior to the Borah Peak earthquake, Old Faithful erupted on average every 69—70 minutes, but 4 months after the earthquake the interval had increased and stabilized at 77—78 minutes.

There is also evidence that rainfall can impact Old Faithful eruption intervals. During wet years, the interval is slightly less than during dry years, perhaps reflecting the greater volume of water that is available to feed eruptions.

So even climate has an impact on how Old Faithful works! Old Faithful has attracted attention since the first explorers visited the area, and no doubt from generations of Native Americans before then.

Skip to main content. Search Search. The story of a Yellowstone icon: Old Faithful Geyser. To figure out why and how these trees were all able to live in this relatively brief, decades-long time window during which Old Faithful seemingly stopped erupting, the researchers looked for historical data that could explain drought conditions at the time, where reduced precipitation and lower groundwater supply would turn off the taps for the iconic geyser.

They didn't have to look far, with previous local tree ring data indicating pronounced megadroughts across the region and in other parts of the world too, resulting from severe conditions during an episode known as the Medieval Climate Anomaly aka Medieval Warm Period.

The upper tree line was higher up the slopes and there is evidence of more fires during that period. The links the team found don't just fill in the gaps on Old Faithful's historical time-keeping. Whitlock specializes in long-term environmental and climate change, and has spent four decades sifting through these sediment-rich lakes, publishing more than scientific papers on the topic. Such a small shift may seem benign — until you realize that the last Ice Age was only about F 2.

In recent decades, the average temperature in the park has been as high as or higher than in any period in the last 20, years, and could be the warmest of the last , years, according to the recent Yellowstone climate assessment. One clue as to what will happen next can be found by looking at plant fossils.

Modern Yellowstone is known for thick pine forests, expansive geyser basins with grassy vistas that break the tree cover. When the team analyzed the pollen buried in Goose Lake, they found that once the temperature heated up, the pine stopped growing and there was a sudden explosion of sagebrush and other grasses that do well in hotter climates. This points to drought at the time, Whitlock says. But as trees die off due to the hotter climate, forests may shrink in the coming decades, which will have a cascading effect: less forest and fewer tree roots mean more grass and more erosion.

Drier grass means fewer nutrients for large mammals.