Is Mount St. Helens Ready to Erupt Again?

  • Thread starter enigma
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Set
In summary: Getting serious yes, and interesting...the closest town to st helens is 30 miles away...the biggest problem i think that is a threat is the ashfall...I remember the news footage from 1980, seeing ash covering everything the way snow would. Volcanoes seemed even more exciting when I was a kid than they do now, but then I think everything did...the world seemed so much more dramatic even though it's really the same (or maybe it was the way they showed the disaster on TV).
  • #1
enigma
Staff Emeritus
Science Advisor
Gold Member
1,758
17
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6092368/

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. - The flurry of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens intensified further Thursday, and one scientist put the chance of a small eruption happening in the next few days at 70 percent.

Interesting.
 
Earth sciences news on Phys.org
  • #3
I've been hearing this, but the description I heard suggested it wasn't going to be a big, big one.

Has anyone heard any good specifics?
 
  • #4
Janus said:
A little more than just "interesting" to those of us who live near the mountain.
I hear that the information center, which is 5 mi (~ 8km) from the crater is the busiest that it has been in years.

Hummm... Let me think about this...

She's going to blow! Let's go stand in front of it!

Me, I live a comfortable 200mi away, I think I'll watch it on TV!

Edit:From what I saw last night, the 1000' lava dome in the crater has moved 2" (5cm) in the last day or so, there is a nearly continuous Richter 3 earthquake underway. Yeah, they say it is going to be small... What is small, when it comes to volcanic eruptions?
 
Last edited:
  • #5
Locrian said:
I've been hearing this, but the description I heard suggested it wasn't going to be a big, big one.

That's what I've heard also. That it won't be near as violent as before.
 
  • #6
It erupted earlier this morning, a pretty good spew of steam an ash, heading to the south west, perhaps we will get some here.
 
  • #7
Just 55 miles away from the mountain myself and it is a bit exciting, but not devastating like the 1980 eruption.
 
  • #8
Integral said:
She's going to blow! Let's go stand in front of it!

No kidding. And many volcanologists have either been killed or had very close calls. I listened to one guy describe his experience in which about six other scientists died. It was like something out of your worst nightmare.
 
  • #9
Integral said:
It erupted earlier this morning, a pretty good spew of steam an ash, heading to the south west, perhaps we will get some here.

Nothing very violent, I'm sure.
 
  • #10
Just a quick update. The Earthquakes, which had subsided after the burst, picked up again earlier this evening.
 
  • #11
as of saturday p.m.-more earthquakes and evacuations for thousands! amazing...interesting to be a part of this!
 
  • #12
Apparently after the second small eruption today of ash and gasses, the tremors intensified, so they're thinking it's going to be much bigger than just these burps.

Where are the closest homes in relation to the mountain? I would think after the 1980 eruption that people would not want to live quite so close to an active volcano.
 
  • #13
Today scientists detected volcanic tremors which indicate the flow of lava underneath the dome. There was a steam release and Hydrogen sulfide gas was detected [by nose]. A level 3 alert was issued - the highest level - which indicates that not only is an eruption is imminent, danger to life and property also exists. When asked how large of an eruption we may see, experts indicated that on a scale of 0-5, with the eruption yesterday being a 0, and the one in 1980 being a 5, we may see a 3; potentially greater. So this is getting quite serious.
 
  • #14
Recent Updates:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=519&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20041003/ap_on_re_us/mount_st__helens [Broken]

hmm
does anyone know where we can see the first blast on video?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #15
Do you mean from 1980?
 
  • #16
Plenty of info available...
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/27/tech/main645674.shtml
 
  • #17
I meant from the recent one but 1980 would be nice also
 
  • #18
It looks like you may have missed my last post. They have a nice page set up for this.
 
  • #19
Ivan Seeking said:
Today scientists detected volcanic tremors which indicate the flow of lava underneath the dome. There was a steam release and Hydrogen sulfide gas was detected [by nose]. A level 3 alert was issued - the highest level - which indicates that not only is an eruption is imminent, danger to life and property also exists. When asked how large of an eruption we may see, experts indicated that on a scale of 0-5, with the eruption yesterday being a 0, and the one in 1980 being a 5, we may see a 3; potentially greater. So this is getting quite serious.

getting serious yes, and interesting...the closest town to st helens is 30 miles away...the biggest problem i think that is a threat is the ashfall...
 
  • #20
I remember the news footage from 1980, seeing ash covering everything the way snow would. Volcanoes seemed even more exciting when I was a kid than they do now, but then I think everything did...the world seemed so much more dramatic even though it's really the same (or maybe it was the way they showed the news).
 
  • #21
what is interesting is, when the public was evacuated from the observatory just 4 miles away, they acted like they were being inconvieneced because they had to leave (according to the what i saw on the news)...i guess some people have no clue how powerful nature is...
 
  • #23
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #24
apparently it is just mostly steam due to the glacier coming in contact with a mass of magma...this isn't the big one yet...
 
  • #25
I wish I were there. I'd probably be one of the tourists who wouldn't leave voluntarily. Damn my scientific curiosity!

- Warren
 
  • #26
chroot said:
I wish I were there. I'd probably be one of the tourists who wouldn't leave voluntarily. Damn my scientific curiosity!

- Warren



And I was just going to make a comment about Darwin award candiates!
 
  • #27
Then let's not mention the thing I did that time with the garden hose... (just kidding) In all honesty, I would find it difficult to pull myself away, but would probably wet myself and flee once I saw an indication that the situation was more dire than just a USGS warning or a plume of steam.

It's a good thing I'm not a volcanologist...

- Warren
 
  • #28
the lates-st helens is gearing up for a real explosion...all of these puffs of ash and steam are most just cracks in the crater opening up and the glacier inside the crater is coming in contact with the hot inside. it truly is exciting to be witnessing this...
 
  • #29
USGS: We should see magma soon.
 
  • #30
I just heard that it was quieting down from my geology professor. Who knows what's going to happen.
 
  • #31
Last time I checked, I thought it'd gone off & taken out /covered the camera... then i realized it was still dark in the U.S.A.
Man I'm having a stupid day today...
 
  • #32
what i heard today is that the USGS said there is a 50/50 chance now that St Helens could erupt like it did in 80 because it is showing similar "behaviors" now as it did in 1980.
 
  • #33
So is now a good time to mention that something like 100,000 years ago, a volcano located in what's now known as the Blue Mountains in NE Oregon had such an energetic release of material that approximately 2/3 of the state was covered with an estimated 6 foot layer of lava and ash [on the average and I would think from a pyroclastic flow], in two hours! It's hard to even imagine such an event happening today, but I'm sure glad I live way, way south of Portland. :tongue:

I picked this up in a filler class taken in college - A history of Oregon. We have a very rich geologic history around here. For example, look up the Great Missoula Floods.

http://192.211.16.13/curricular/energies/Aprojfolder/missoula/Five.htm

We have some large stones deposited from these around our place. Apparently we live where a large eddy would form and deposit flood debris.

Not to derail the thread but I find this stuff all very fascinating.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
  • #34
I'm glad the winds aren't blowing south as well. Sorry for all you suckers in SE Washington and NE Oregon.
 
  • #35
Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!

I just heard the last words transmitted by David Johnston; a geologist who was on the north slope monitoring St. Helens when the 1980 eruption began...spooky...

Also, this is a nice site.
http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/StHelens.html?

The largest landslide in recorded history swept down the mountain at speeds of 70 to 150 miles per hour and buried the North Fork of the Toutle River under an average of 150 feet of debris. Some areas are covered by as much as 600 feet. I all, approximately 23 square miles of material was removed from the mountain.

Lateral Blast The lateral blast swept out of the north side of MSH at 300 miles per hour creating a 230 square mile fan shaped area of devastation reaching a distance of 17 miles from the crater. With temperatures as high as 660 degrees F and the power of 24 megatons of thermal energy, it snapped 100 year old trees like toothpicks and stripped them of their bark...

...As the north face of the mountain collapsed, expanding gases and steam from the molten rock hurtled rock and ash out across the land at speeds up to 670 miles per hour uprooting trees as far as 6 miles from the mountain. It was impossible to outrun and the searing heat too intense. Reid Blackburn, a photographer with The Columbian newspaper was one of the first victims of the eruption. Blackburn had tried to take shelter in his car but the lateral blast blew in the windows, letting in the hot, choking ash. He was found in his car 7 miles north of the mountain...

much more plus photos and links
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Replies
1
Views
735
Replies
14
Views
6K
Replies
16
Views
5K
Replies
33
Views
17K
Writing: Read Only Great Lakes Earth
  • Sci-Fi Writing and World Building
Replies
1
Views
3K
  • Quantum Interpretations and Foundations
Replies
8
Views
433
Replies
4
Views
1K
  • Sci-Fi Writing and World Building
Replies
1
Views
2K
  • Earth Sciences
Replies
7
Views
5K
Replies
1
Views
920
Back
Top