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Jeff Miller
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Joined: 22 Nov 2001
Posts: 23947
Location: Mental Ward for the Mentaly Unstable 6th floor, Saint John's 1615 Delaware Longview Washington 98632
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 Fri Oct 01, 2004 3:12 pm Mount St. Helens begins blowing steam |
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| Quote: | Mount St. Helens begins blowing steam
12:05 PM PDT on Friday, October 1, 2004
By ANTONIA GIEDWOYN and TERESA BELL, kgw.com Staff
MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. -- Mount St. Helens began blowing steam Friday around Noon -- a large white plume mixed with black smoke could be seen. It may be the beginning of an eruption.
The flurry of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens continued Friday, and cracking was detected on a glacier located on the south side of the dome inside the crater. The chance of a small to moderate eruption this month remained at 70 percent.
U.S. Geological Survey scientist Dan Dzurisin collects information from a Global Positioning System (GPS) station high on the east flank of Mount St. Helens.
�We are seeing cracks in the ice, whether that�s from heat or expansion we don�t know, but that�s new,� Jim Vallance, a geologist with U.S. Geological Survey, told KGW early Friday.
John Major, a geologist with the USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash., said a deformation pattern in the crater not far from the crack demonstrates that, "something is pushing up from below onto that glacier.� He said the ground has uplifted as much as "a few tens of feet," but couldn't provide an exact measurement since crews were assessing the area from the air.
It's not safe to use ground crews, Major said.
"We don�t have highly gas-charged magma trying to move up, but we do have something in the way," Major said during a news conference Friday morning. He speculated that could indicate "some type of explosive event" is more likely to take place than the second possible scenario -- hot magma oozing out onto the lava dome.
Deformation data shows the 975-foot lava dome in the volcano's crater has moved slightly northward since Monday.
As of Thursday, the crater was measured to have moved approximately 2 1/2 inches to the north, said Jeff Wynn, the chief scientist at the USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory. "For a geologist, that's a lot of energy," Wynn said.
By Friday, the crater had moved northward one additional inch, Major said.
Small quakes continued shaking the mountain several times a minute on Friday. Larger quakes, with magnitudes of 3 to 3.3, were occurring every three or four minutes.
Scientists were installing a microphone on the mountain to listen for explosions, Major said.
On Thursday, crews flew above the mountain, testing for gasses that could indicate the presence of magma moving beneath the volcano. They found no significant output of gas, according to Major.
Michael Ballard, 7, of Vancouver, Wash., looks at Mount St. Helens through a celestial-type of telescope.
Scientists did not expect anything like the mountain's devastating eruption in 1980, which killed 57 people and coated towns 250 miles away with ash. On Wednesday, they warned that a small or moderate blast from the southwest Washington mountain could spew ash and rock as far as three miles from the 8,364-foot peak.
Few people live near the mountain, which is in a national forest about 100 miles south of Seattle. The closest structure is the Johnston Ridge Observatory, about five miles from the crater.
However, closures near Mount St. Helens are impacting the hunting season. Hunters can no longer reach some of the most popular hunting areas around the mountain. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said the restrictions include a 12-mile radius around the mountain.
For updates on public access, hunters and other outdoor recreationists are encouraged to contact the U. S. Forest Service at (360) 247-3900 or call Weyerhaeuser's access hotline at 1-866-636-6531.
The Geological Survey kept the mountain's eruption advisory at Level 2 out of a possible 3 on Friday. Earlier in the week, various state and federal agencies were notified of the expected eruption. The USGS also has asked the National Weather Service to be ready to track an ash plume with its radar.
The eruption alert has drawn a throng of sightseers to observation areas. Dawn Smith, co-owner of Eco Park Resort west of the mountain, told The News Tribune of Tacoma, "It's just been crazy the past couple of days."
A sign in front of her business reads, "Here we go again."
Park ranger Pamela McCray gestures as she leads a tour group.
The USGS has been monitoring St. Helens closely since Sept. 23, when swarms of tiny earthquakes were first recorded. On Sunday, scientists issued a notice of volcanic unrest, closing the crater and upper flanks of the volcano to hikers and climbers.
Scientists said they believe the seismic activity is being caused by pressure from a reservoir of molten rock a little more than a mile below the crater. That magma apparently rose from a depth of about six miles in 1998, but never reached the surface, Wynn said.
The mountain's eruption on May 18, 1980, blasted away its top 1,300 feet, spawned mudflows that choked the Columbia River shipping channel, leveled hundreds of square miles of forest and paralyzed towns and cities more than 250 miles to the east with volcanic ash.
(The Associated Press also contributed to this report.) |
I'm pretty close to the moutain and there are signs of ash falling nothing bad I hope this is the end of it.
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