Pressure Building Again Inside St. Helens

[Kitana85]

Pressure Building Again Inside St. Helens

2 hours, 18 minutes ago

By DAVID AMMONS, Associated Press Writer

MOUNT ST. HELENS, Wash. - Mount St. Helens quieted down after spewing a plume of steam and ash — but only briefly. Within hours of the eruption Friday, seismic readings suggested pressure was building again inside the volcano, which had been dormant for 18 years.

It began rumbling last week, set off by small earthquakes occurring as often as three or four times a minutes, and scientists said there could be more steam eruptions soon.


Friday's eruption, described by government scientist Jeff Wynn as a "throat-clearing," was the sleeping giant's first since 1986. On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens blew its top with such force that 57 people lost their lives.


The volcanic burp cast a haze across the horizon as the roiling plume rose from the nearly 1,000-foot-tall dome. After about 20 minutes, the mountain calmed and the plume dissipated.


"It was such a thrill!" said Faye Ray, a retired school teacher who watched from an observatory near the mountain. "I just felt we would see something today and we did."


The ash appeared to pose no threat to anyone, but scientists warned that people living southwest of the mountain might notice a dusting on their cars. There was no sign of lava.


The earthquakes started Sept. 23 and grew steadily stronger, finally reaching a magnitude of 3.3 Thursday and Friday. After the eruption, they stopped for several hours, said Wynn, of the U.S. Geological Survey

Then, the tremors resumed, hitting a one-per-minute pace, said Bill Steele at the University of Washington seismic laboratory. A couple exceeded magnitude 2.


A few more steam explosions are likely, Steele said, "until enough debris is cleared, and then there is a significant chance that lava could be extruded at the surface."


Tom Pierson, a USGS geologist, said officials will monitor the site "on a very intense scale until we can determine that the thing has really gone back to sleep."


Scientists had not been expecting anything like the mountain's devastating eruption in 1980, which coated much of the Northwest with ash and obliterated the top 1,300 feet of the mountain. It now stands 8,364 feet.


Few people live near the mountain, the centerpiece of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, about 100 miles south of Seattle. The closest structure is the Johnston Ridge Observatory, about five miles from the crater.


"It wasn't lava-y, so I wasn't scared," said Lorain Weatherby, who was working a snack bar down the road from St. Helens. "It was like a big white cloud."


Mike Fergus, a spokesman with the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) in Seattle, said the plume had reached 16,000 feet in altitude.


Alaska Airlines canceled five flights scheduled to take off from Portland International Airport in Oregon, but quickly resumed its normal schedule, said spokesman Sam Sperry.

hate to live there now

[Crono]

I would be pretty scared if I live near St Helens right now.. hopefully it doesn't burst like it did before, but I'm betting that it will.

[Jason1]

Yea, I read about St. Helens acting up again a few days ago.

Sounds like even if it does do anything else, it wont be anything near as bad as it was in 1980.

[GameMaster]

I've been keeping up with this through CNN and it's assuring to know that scientists having been making successful predictions about it's status. Meanwhile, the local villagers are overcome by a foreboding sense of tense feelings and an omen-like atmosphere.

[Happydude]

cool...volcano...

[Dyne]

My Geology teacher must be going crazy right now. CRAZY.

[thatmariolover]

Haha. About eight years ago I went to go visit some friends of my family on the edge of Oregon. Mount St. Helens was only a little ways away. It was really cool, it was huge on the horizon. We were going to go there but it was closed off because a boulder fell and killed some guy the week before.

:Edit: I just found out the mountain I was close to was not St. Helens, but some other mountain. So not so cool.

[dropCGCF]

Originally Posted by Crono

I would be pretty scared if I live near St Helens right now.. hopefully it doesn't burst like it did before, but I'm betting that it will.

You'd also be pretty stupid to live next to a relatively active volcano.

[Typhoid]

When it blew in 1980 (or '81) we got ash here in the Valley....and were in friggin Canada...plus my mom aid you could hear the explosion from here.

But yesterday it released steam, and since then most of the earthquakes have been dying down, because their is most likely nothing else to happen. It has no magma close to the top (apparently).

But i do/did want it to explode, i know it sounds horrible, but I mean, like, how often will a volcano in your area explode.

Let me rephrase that.

I want it to explode, but kill no people.


EDIT: Nobody lives next to the volcano.

If you think its stupid to for people to live near a relatively ( as you said, even though it hasnt erupted in 24 years) why not tell all of Hawaii they are crazy? New active volcanoes are being created there every year, Hell, Hawaii was formed from volcanoes. Hawaii is on a hotspot, meaning new volcanoes will always form around there.

So while your evacuating parts of Washington, why not evacuate the Middle East, China, Russia, and Japan?

[dropCGCF]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

If you think its stupid to for people to live near a relatively ( as you said, even though it hasnt erupted in 24 years) why not tell all of Hawaii they are crazy? New active volcanoes are being created there every year,

I'd consider a volcano that erupts 4 times a century on average an active volcano. And I never said all Hawaiians aren't crazy.