It’s definitely exciting! Giantess Geyser is a big geyser that does not erupt frequently.
Yellowstone National Park’s Giantess Geyser is erupting for the first time in two-and-a-half years as reported by park rangers.
The eruption occurred on January 29 2014 at around 2:55 p.m. Previous eruptions have gone on intermittently for between one and 43 hours.
As shown in the video, the usually quiet geyser is shooting off bursts of water that reach 50 feet (15 meters) into the air.
Why did it erupt?
Giantess Geyser, nearby the more famous Old Faithful, is an infrequent erupter with, normally, two to three episodes per year.
In recent years its activity has slowed down, perhaps as a result of small earthquakes that continuously rearrange the underground plumbing of the park’s geysers (see last swarm here). The last time Giantess erupted was Sept. 13, 2011.
We don’t know when it will stop, and we don’t know when it will go again in the future.
Surprise eruption
The pool around the geyser can surge before eruptions, giving a little notice, Carlson said. But yesterday (Jan. 29) afternoon, the weather in Yellowstone was snowy and windy, and no one was in the Upper Geyser Basin near Old Faithful watching the pool.
In 2013, the Steamboat Geyser (the world’s tallest), also erupted for the first time in more than eight years. Another amazing geyser erupted from a parking lot in Russia.
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