Most regular geyser

Between 20 and 27 October 2012, a team of scientists recorded the activity of a geyser – dubbed "El Jefe" – at the El Tatio geothermal field in northern Chile, the largest geyser field in the southern hemisphere. As reported in the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research in January 2015, over the six days of data collection and 3,531 eruptions monitored, the mean interval between eruptions of "El Jefe" was 132.2 seconds, with a standard deviation of just 2.4 seconds.

By way of comparison, the Old Faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park, USA, which is world-famous for its regularity, erupts around 17 times a day and can be predicted with a 90% confidence rate within a 10-minute variation.

The duration of El Jefe's eruptions were also extremely consistent, lasting for 51.9 seconds ± 2.5 seconds.

This study was a collaboration between the University of California, Berkeley; the US Geological Survey; Portland State University (all USA); and Hiroshima University (Japan) – led by Carolina Munoz-Saez and Michael Manga at the University of California, Berkeley.