Mount St. Helens Alert Status Increased

DarkHand writes "Mount St. Helens has become even more unstable in the last few hours. The U.S. Geological Surveys Cascades Volcano Observatory has increased the volcanic alert around the volcano to level 2 and released a press release: 'Over night, seismic activity at Mount St. Helens has accelerated significantly, which increases our level of concern that current unrest could culminate in an eruption. We are increasing the alert level to the second of three levels [...]. Earthquakes are occurring at about four per minute. The largest events are approaching Magnitude 2.5 and they are becoming more frequent. All are still at shallow levels in and below the lava dome that grew in the crater between 1980 and 1986. This suggests that the ongoing intense earthquake activity has weakened the dome, increasing the likelihood of explosions or perhaps the extrusion of lava from the dome.' The most recent readings at the SEP seismograph stationed on the lava dome itself are totally saturated. The ground is now literally constantly rumbling."

To quote Counter-Strike:

"Get outta there, it's gonna blow!"

REM fans unite

.. if only to shout "Leonard Bernstein" at this point.

Scary, yet cool.

All of these hurricanes, tornadoes earthquakes, floods, and now volcano eruptions...when do the plagues and locusts start happening?

Re:Scary, yet cool.

FYI much of Africa has, for several weeks now, been suffering from a extraordinary plague of locusts.

e.g. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own _correspondent/3689808.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Re:Scary, yet cool.

All's that's left is for the sea to turn to blood.

Oh. Nevermind [nzherald.co.nz]

Re:Scary, yet cool.

Unless you're old or have a very weak imune system West Nile just causes flu like symptoms for a few days..

memo to self

Memo to self: Don't live anywhere near an active volcano.

Re:memo to self

From the article: GPS instrument on the lava dome...suggest that the site moved a few inches northward Monday and Tuesday.

Looks like you also have to be sure you don't live in the path of an active volcano. At that rate Mount St. Helens could reach Canada in a few thousand years!

*spoiler alert*

KABOOM!

Mt St Helens seismic and other info

Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument [fs.fed.us] (USFS map [fs.fed.us], Mapquest map [mapquest.com])

USGS earthquake info for Mt St Helens National Volcanic Monument area [usgs.gov] (wide view [usgs.gov])

USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory Mt St Helens seismic observations [usgs.gov]

Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network Mt St Helens home page [washington.edu] (earthquake list [washington.edu])

Re:Mt St Helens seismic and other info

dont forget the webcam.
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/ [fs.fed.us]

Ahh, this is the life

I'm sick of all these damn hurricanes, honey. Where else can we live?

I want to get as far away from this place as possible. How about Washington?

Works for me, let's go!

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam

Hmm. I was hoping to see a live volcano eruption here [fs.fed.us], but it seems
not to be broadcasting now. Anyone knows why/what's happening ?

Re:Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam

seems not to be broadcasting now. Anyone knows why...

Yeah, you just /.ed it.

A wonderful place to visit

I was there about ten years ago, with a college field trip. Being from the Midwest, I haddn't seen any real volcanos until then. I was looking forward to seeing the terrific devistation and other formations left by the 1980 eruptions.
While driving up the windy mountin road to get to the park, our van turned a bend, and suddenly I saw before me a swath of devistation so utterly complete that I knew only some tremendous force could have removed all the trees and other signs of life.
I asked the "vetrans" of the group if we had reached the blast zone already. They responded: "Nope, that's just a clearcut. The blast zone now has much more wildlife."
Ah well. I was just there to look at the rocks anyway.

better mt. st. helens than mt. rainier

ifd you live in tacoma, mt. rainier is the one you worry about

pdf map of lava flow hazard from mt. rainier to tacoma [usgs.gov]

Related to California Quake a few days ago?

I couldn't help but wonder if the two are related? Is Mt. St. Helens related to the the quake in California on Tuesday? They're in that same general fault line aren't they?

Can anyone who knows more about Earth Science help me out here?

The end is near

By an interesting coincidence, I was born near Mt. St. Helens during the first eruption. Yes...as I was delivered from the womb, the city was covered with ash and filled with the sounds of weeping and gnashing of teeth *cough* I mean, sweeping and washing of streets.

Maybe with this next eruption, instead of merely being born, I'll actually get a life.

Due to severe slashdot effect...

...our scientists are no longer able to monitor and analyze any vulcanic activity online.
Folks: you're on your own.

Alert Levels

Have we positively ruled out terrorism as a cause of this seismic activity at this point?

Be afraid if the volcanoes ever stop

Subduction zones (like those off the west coast of America) and volcanoes (such as St. Helens) are a big part of the long-term carbon cycle of the planet [ucla.edu]. Left to its own, life and chemical processes on this planet would convert all the atmospheric carbon into calcium carbonate that would be trapped in rock on the bottom of the ocean. Subduction zones and volcanoes reprocess this rock into CO2.

Once the Earth's crust cools enough, it will lock up and stop the cycle and CO2 will inexorable drop in concentration. I can't remember when this is predicted to happen, but I believe it is scheduled to occur before the Sun becomes a red giant. Of course, I'm sure our descendants (assuming we have them) will invent their own C02 extract factories to keep the Earth nicely carbonated when the time comes.

You think Mt. St. Helens was big...

Google 'Yellowstone volcano.' In one of the two or three times I favored my intro to geology class with my presence, my professor explained that much of Yellowstone National Park is the caldera of a giant volcano, according to him the largest on earth, hence the geysers and sulfurous springs. If it were to erupt again -- fortunately it does so rarely, about once every 600k years -- it would cover most of the Western US in ash and if it did so without warning, would kill millions of people.

Re:How severe?

Seismologists are expecting anywhere from nothing at all (not uncommon following an earthquake swarm, happens at Kilaeua from time to time), to a moderate event.

By comparison, the 1980 blast was a catastrophic event. A medium strength earthquake caused the entire north face of the mountain to crumble in a massive rockslide, which also uncorked the pressure on the magma underneath, resulting in a huge lateral explosion through the rock slide. Imagine a wall of rocks coming at you at 300mph. It's doubtful that something like that will happen again in our lifetimes.

Re:How severe?

OK, I haven't done any geology in over two decades, so take this with a grain salt, but my understanding is that one of the reasons that the "big one" was so big was that St. Helens had not erupted for centuries and the top of the lava tube was blocked like a giant zit. When enough pressure finally built up to blow the cap off, it threw crap everywhere. That would indicate that the currently forecasted eruption is unlikely to be as large, although it could still be a significant event.

Prank Volcano

There will be a big white flag coming out of the crater reading "BOOM!" any minute now...