Order of Kilopi
Well third time is a charm, it -was- movement, I had that part correct, but not a kind I've ever seen on a siesmograph before, which is why I could not pin it down.
It wasn't flooding though, it was Glaciers! According to USGS reports there has been a lot of Glacier movement at Rainier and St. Helens due to the unusual warm/cold/warm/cold weather patterns.
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There was a regular 3.4 quake near St. Helens (15 km) in the Elk Lake region, while it's at the depth of St. Helen's Magma pool, this appears to be a Strike/Slip Quake. It had a few aftershocks in the 1-2 mag range.
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USGS comfirmed that the 3.4 was Fault activity with last weekends weekends updates.
Order of Kilopi
I FINNALY got a sample for you, sorry it took so long, but oregon doesn't get a lot of Lightning. the Long thin spikes are the lightning events the seismograph picked up.Originally Posted by jlhredshift
Attachment 16297
Bad Post-Doc
Yeah, one of the only things I miss about living in California over living in Western Washington is thunderstorms. Rain, we get. Thunder? Seldom.
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Order of Kilopi
Well, don't visit Sacramento, as we rarely get thunderstorms. I was amazed a year or two back when we finally had a truly respectable thunderstorm, something that came close to what I remember from the Midwest. I haven't heard any thunder this winter.
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Order of Kilopi
I'll trade you. I've been east of the Mississippi river for nearly ten years (in Illinois and in Kentucky), and I cannot sleep during a thunderstorm. This annoys me to no end.
Order of Kilopi
Hehehehehe, try Southwest Florida from May-September, there's a thunderstorm almost every day, into the night and sometimes into the early morning. Although I have to say the weirdest storm I saw was in Iceland. There was thunder, visible lightning (one bolt hit about a half a mile from us) but it was snowing, not raining.
Order of Kilopi
We get Thundersnows in the Midwest too.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Order of Kilopi
I've heard that, but I spent my first 19 years there, and I never saw one. Or, more likely, being young and self-centered, just didn't pay any attention to it.
Established Member
Thank you dgavin, luv thunderstorms, and I've seen and felt both kinds. I lived in Illinois for 38 years, Florida for 13, and now Ohio for nine. Once, I was watching a storm out my bedroom window and a bolt hit a telephone pole ground diagonal wire fifty feet away. The boom, flash, and concussion seemed simultaneous. I couldn't see or hear for several minutes. The ground steamed for awhile though.
Moderator
I've heard them a few times in Ohio and was in the middle of one once, though the lightening was all cloud-to-cloud (good thing too, I was hiking in the woods).
Order of Kilopi
well, I did see a couple flashes and a boom a couple weeks ago with snow, but it is rare. However, in 8th grade I remember a really big thundersnow where it was flashing and booming like crazy and the snow was coming coming down fast. I think school was canceled that day.
On the news yesterday they showed footage of storm damage in Alabama and it looks like there was snow falling on the downed trees. I don't know if it was a thundersnow or illusion or if the weather changed over after the storms.
Et tu BAUT? Quantum mutatus ab illo.
Order of Kilopi
It was probably a weather change after the storms. The storms precede the cold fronts, especially at this time of year in the deep south. It's quite warm here in Florida and if it he temperature gradient of the front is steep enough (which I hear it is, the same front came through last night, without the severe weather, and drop our temps 10-15 degrees) you get the severe weather first. Then, if there is still enough moisture in the air once the cold front passes through, it can turn to snow.
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Well there is still a complete lack of pictures of the glacier toes and Lowitt falls area's so my promise to monitor those so many years ago never happened.
However a few week ago a I read a printed update that the glacier toes have reached Lowitt falls, and are starting to spill over the falls area. I wish I could of found a picture of this, but I've been unsucessfull.
Order of Kilopi
USGS installed some new equipment this last week on the old '80-'86 lava dome. This includes something they are calling a "highly sensative" gravity monitoring device. I suspect this might be an experimental type of new volcanic monitoring device they are field testing at St. Helens.
Established Member
Haven't seen any new photos in quite a while, so did some searching. No particularly good photos but did find that, for $500 ($400 is tax deductable donation to MSHI), you can join the MSH Institute for an authorized climb intro the crater right up to the glacier face. It's apparently a pretty active place, with frequent loud impact sounds as rocks/ice fall off the face.
Meanwhile, still looking for "toe shots", see what the glacier is doing as it approaches the big canyon (upper Loowit falls I think?).
Meanwhile, recent youTube videos (south face climbs to the rim) show the dome still steaming quietly...what an amazing place that's got to be! Heck, anywhere on/near that mountain...
keep 'em coming, DG...
Order of Kilopi
Finnaly after years, USGS is posting photos again, the most notable is the one of the Loowit Canyon and Mesa, Features that have formed just in the last few decade's, instead of the millions of years that normally takes. A testimony to the power of water eroding new geological features.
img472.jpg
All of the Aug 12 field images can be browsed at the following url
http://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observator...w_gallery.html
Order of Kilopi
There have been rumors floating around the last few weeks that St. Helens is becoming more active again. These rumors are just not true. There have been a few minor earthquake swarms, but these have been some 10-20km south-southeast of St. Helens and there is nothing volcanic behind them.
Order of Kilopi
It's been fairly quiet at St. Helen's. There was a nice looking Avalanche signature on the seismographs last night, with a .6 Mag.
Avalanche signatures are fairly easy to spot on seismographs, as they curve up to a peak amplitude, and then curve back down. Very similar to how a bell curve looks on a graph. Very similar to wind signatures, but they don't tend to happen in groups like wind gusts.
Order of Kilopi
As promised a long long time ago, images showing the still very dynamic nature of Mt. St. Helens, specifically at the Loowit falls area.
Loowit Falls in 2007
Where did Loowit falls go? Same region in 2013
As evident, the glaciers have now completely covered the falls, and are still advancing down Loowit canyon. You can still see part of the small peek in the left on this second image, thats is the same peak what was directly left of Loowit falls in 2007. The lovely pink and yellow dactice peak in the center behind the falls in 2007, has also been removed by the slow but relentless motion of the glacier.
St. Helens is still such a dynamic place, seeing water falls and peaks form, only be ground away in a few years, instead of the millions of years that normally takes.
Last edited by dgavin; 2013-Aug-20 at 07:06 PM.
Order of Kilopi
I've been looking at the GPS readings at St. Helens, which started being monitored in 2009. Mt. St. Helens has a very interesting cycle of uplift/subsidence that exactly 1 year in length, involving a 20 cm average change in that years cycle of uplift and then subsidence. In the south areas of the volcano, the GPS are slowly Subsiding, indicating a trend that there is less uplift and more subside over time, about a 4 CM total subsidence since 2009. In the North area, that trend is reversed, with about a 1cm over all gain of uplift since 2009. In the Central area's while the cycle is still present, there is no net uplift or subsidence.
Two things are evident from this trend. It's magma pool is still refilling, meaning that additional eruptions are still possible (though remote chance) and that the upper magma pool seems to be moving slowly to the north.
It is possible that in a few thousand (to 10 of thousands) years of eruptions that St. Helens could spawn a sister volcano, and become very similar to the Three Sisters and Broken Top in it's formation.
Established Member
Interesting. Is this a new and unique observation that you made? Are you writing it up for publication somewhere?
Nick
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Nick,
I would not even no where to begin with something like that. I used to send my observations to USGS and get feed back on them. But since the budget issues, there has been no feed back on anything from USGS or PNSN for close to 6 years. There might already be papers out there on the GPS trend's and I just haven't seen them. It's fairly evident when you look at the GPS readings and charts, so I assume there is something out there published about it.
Moderator
If you were interested in publishing this, you might contact the geology department of one of the local universities, or a local natural history museum, and see if there was
someone interested in collaborating on a paper.
Order of Kilopi
No, instead you get the periodic bout of eight straight days of 35 mile per hour winds with an air temperature of 112F (45C).
I had to move furniture in that on at least two occasions.
Order of Kilopi
About a hour and a half ago there was a 1.2 mag on the surface inside the crater of St. Helens, with a wave form that matches glacier movement. It's likely one of the glacier toes is on the move again.
Order of Kilopi
A small swarm of four, < 1 mag normal quakes yesterday followed by an unexpected 2.3 Mag Volcanic Tremor, at 1.1km depth, at 9:20 this morning lasting about a full minute.
While this has been the first real sign of magma still moving since the end of it's eurptive cycle the last time. It's a singular event, and is by no means an indication of new activity. Just rather notable now because of its magnitude.
Last edited by dgavin; 2014-Jan-28 at 08:35 PM.
Order of Kilopi
The tremor a few weeks ago didn't make it onto USGS reports. It's been quiet since. Looks like it was just a burp.
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Goat Mt. Swarm. So far 7 micro quakes, just 1km north of Goat Mountain (A little sister of St. Helens), and 5km West of St. Helens. Depth of these quakes is around 11km. They are not tremors, so it appears to just be split/coverging fault's activity, that is likey just west and below St. Helens magma chamber.
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