Last year, my family and I went up there for a day trip. The ranger/volcanologist gave a talk about the eruption. They were monitoring it very closely indeed, and they were looking for a particular gas that volcanoes seem to give off before an eruption (they’ve noticed this gas when Hawaiian volcanoes erupt). They never saw evidence of the gas when St. Helens erupted.
BUT...it turns out they were looking in the wrong place.
Hawaii’s volcanoes don’t have snow, so the gas is evident in the open air. They found out later that the gas they were looking for for was dissolved into the water from the snowmelt coming off the mountain. If they’d noticed it then, the ranger said they likely would have known the mountain was about to blow.
Because of that, they now know to look at the runoff from Cascade volcanoes as a predictor of a possible eruption.
...they now know to look at the runoff from Cascade volcanoes as a predictor of a possible eruption.
**************************************************
Thanks for the interesting info. I hadn’t heard about the gas before.
Very interesting. Thanks!