Some Questions About the Data

[idontgetoutmuch]

I have downloaded the historical dataset for old faithful: http://www.geysertimes.org/archive/geysers/Old_Faithful_eruptions.tsv.gz. I am struggling to understand what some of the columns mean.

In particular, looking at the first row,

eruptionID	geyser	eruption_time_epoch	has_seconds	exact	ns	ie	E	A	wc	ini	maj	min	q	duration	entrant	observer	eruption_comment	time_updated	time_entered	associated_primaryID	other_comments	Old_Faithful_Preplay_Time_VEC	Old_Faithful_Height_VEC
23132	Old Faithful	10506540	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	4min	BoekelUpload	OFVCL-EV		1335129843	1335129843	23132	NULL	NULL	NULL

did the dataset really begin at (eruption_time_epoch):

*Main> epochToUTC 10506540
1970-05-02 14:29:00 UTC

and if so what do the time_updated and and time_entered mean?

*Main> epochToUTC 1335129843
2012-04-22 21:24:03 UTC

Perhaps the data was collected in 1970 but only added to your excellent site in 2012?

By row 86360 the consistency(?) seems to have improved

86360	Old Faithful	1310155500	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	1m46s	BoekelUpload	OFVCL-EV	(160+ft)	1352243080	1352243080	86360	NULL	NULL	NULL

So the eruption_time_epoch is

*Main> epochToUTC 1310155500
2011-07-08 20:05:00 UTC

and the time_updated and time_entered are

*Main> epochToUTC 1352243080
2012-11-06 23:04:40 UTC

Also the number of missing entries for duration seem to have increased over time. Is there any reason for this?

I am trying to validate the dataset that is available in the R programming language https://stat.ethz.ch/R-manual/R-devel/library/datasets/html/faithful.html which I am beginning to suspect is not representative of old faithful's actual behaviour.

[idontgetoutmuch]

In case you are interested in what the R dataset looks like

The x-axis is duration and the y-axis is gap between eruptions.