AP The mound behind the lava dome at Mount St. Helens has grown, cracking the glacier to the right after a steam and ash eruption earlier this week.
Posted on 10/09/2004 1:19:07 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
"The Loaf" in Mount St. Helens' crater continues to cook, rising 10 to 30 feet in the preceding 24 hours, geologists said yesterday.
The top of the new bulge is now slightly higher than the lava dome built up by a series of eruptions in the mid-1980s, said Jake Lowenstern, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist.
Magma is the driving force that has uplifted the area nicknamed "the Loaf" nearly 300 feet in the past week. But two weeks after the volcano rumbled back to life, experts remain uncertain when and how that molten rock will reach the surface.
They're considering two distinct scenarios, depending on how far the magma lies below the ground, said USGS geologist John Pallister.
Based on the shallow depth of the small earthquakes that continue to rattle the crater every minute or so, many scientists think that magma is now sitting just below the surface — maybe a few hundred feet deep, directly pushing on the ground above it, Pallister said.
If that's the case, any resulting eruption may be relatively placid because the magma may have already lost much of the gas that would make it more explosive.
Under the second scenario, magma may still be nearly a mile underground, indirectly triggering uplift by pushing on a wedge of rock. With more ground to cover before it reaches the surface, magma in that case could be more likely to stall on its way up, Pallister said. But if it did rush to the surface, it could be explosive because it would still contain high levels of gas.
"There's many things going on down there, and Mother Nature doesn't choose to tell us what all those things are and at what rate they're taking place," Lowenstern said.
The alert for the volcano yesterday remained at Level Two on a three-point scale, meaning that an eruption is probable but not imminent and not a threat to life or property.
Though it's still possible the volcano will quiet down, Pallister said he thinks some type of eruption will occur in the coming days or weeks.
The size and intensity of earthquakes have dropped off since the last of three steam and ash explosions Tuesday, he said. The lower-level rumbles since then indicate that magma is moving without having to break rocks — and may have a clear path.
"That would suggest it's likely we would see magma getting to the surface," he said.
While an eruption could trigger small lahars, or mudflows, the most significant effect on people who live near the volcano would be a dusting of volcanic ash carried by winds, scientists say.
Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com
Translation....we haven't a clue what is going to happen.
Stay safe up there in WA.
Red
It could go anytime, but then it could go months from now and then again not at all.
All speculations.
Awesome natural event however.
Prayers still going up for those living around the mountain for no adverse health effects from ash it she blows.
Here's a collection of awesome recent photos of the volcano...
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Images/MSH04/
(Straw in hair, one hand scratching butt; other picking nose) Iff'n thay doesn't know iff'n the magma is a-pushhin on a rock block, whyun't they set off some dynamite, and read it on a sizemometer, likun they'ns do fer erl drillin?
Seriously, despite our vaunted (rightly!) technology & learning, some things we still just have to 'wait and see' to get the answer.
It sounds like one (lots of pressure; no blockage)way, we get a nasty explosion; another (shallow, little pressure) way, we get a relativly tame lava flow; and a third (deep, some pressure, but a strong enough 'lid') way we get nothing more than some more steam and ash, at most.
Glad I don't have to make the guesses.
Glock..thanks for the loink..awesome pics..to both of you..on the pic on this thread..any sense of scale, size?...how big it is what we're looking at..?..it's hard to judge..
Thanks for the links. Awesome pics. The Loaf looks like a Horta to me :) How about gas flights over the crater? Any change in the results from those?
If you looks closely at the bottom of the pic..you can see a road, tire tracks, the mouth of a cave, and a few people standing in front..it's Osama's hideout in Tora Bora..
And these guys are getting paid for this??
I want in.
Please lord don't let this mountain erupt in a way that would acause mudflows into Castle lake or it's tributary, Castle Creek.
This could cause a catastrophic killing of those 10lb wild rainbows I've been planning on hiking in to catch in 2006.
Amen.
Apparently they weren't able to fly yesterday due to the weather. They don't say when they will do the next fly over in this morning's update...
Thanks! Presser's in another hour. Hope someone carries it.
Did anyone see the home recording made at the dome ridge?
It was on one of the local Oregon stations.
All the roads leading up to the Mt. have been closed for obvious public safety reasons.
Well some guy snuck up to the dome and shot footage of the crater, bulge ect as earthquakes were going off and he was talking about how freaky it all felt the picture jiggling with each quake.
He then sent the tape into the tv station. It was a sunrise when he shot the foot age.
This was done just in the last few days.
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