All summer in my ranger work at Norris Geyser Basin, I attempted to convey to visitors the power and fury of Steamboat Geyser, earth’s tallest geyser, which very few people will ever be privileged to see in its full grandeur. The intervals between the geyser’s major eruptions can be anywhere from four days to 50 years, and there is no pattern, and no way to predict it. These eruptions can be over three times the height of Old Faithful, and many times louder and more violent.
Late in the summer, while doing some
informal research on one of my favorite subjects, the Godzilla films,
I had a realization. When Steamboat Geyser reaches its maximum
eruptive height of 380 feet (116 meters), it is taller than Godzilla!
Or to be precise, it is taller than NEARLY all versions of Godzilla.
Godzilla was 164 feet (50 meters) tall in the original 1954 Toho
film, and was scaled up for the sequels. In The Return of Godzilla
(1984), he was 262 feet (80 meters) tall; in Godzilla vs. King
Ghidorah (1991) he was 328 feet (100 meters) tall; in Godzilla (2014,
Legendary Pictures), he was 355 feet (108.2 meters) tall. Only the Shin
Godzilla (2015) version of the beast may be taller than Steamboat
Geyser, at 389 feet (118.5 meters).
To illustrate the titanic size of
Steamboat Geyser, I produced the drawing above. Maybe we can make a
t-shirt out of it, for folks who work at Norris.
Godzilla is trademarked to Toho
studios, so I will not be doing anything big with my drawing.
