St. Helens
eklemetti | March 17, 2009
Now that Redoubt has decided that Yellow/Advisory is not to its likely and has returned to an Orange/Watch status, I'll continue bringing new updates of the volcano has events unfold.
And nothing much has unfolded since the phreatic explosion that occurred on Sunday. The current state of the volcano, according to AVO, is minor seismic unrest and that is about it. They do offer some more details of the events on Sunday:
An AVO overflight Sunday witnessed activity from 11:30 AM until about 3:00 PM and was able to document ash emission from a new vent, just south of the 1990 lava dome and west…
eklemetti | March 14, 2009
Photo: The north flank of Mount Redoubt in early February 2009. Credit: Chris Waythomas / Alaska Volcano Observatory/U.S. Geological Survey
I've been following the waxing and waning of activity at Mt. Redoubt in Alaska for the past two months like many of you have. For a time there, the volcano had the nation's attention, both from the threat of a eruption near major shipping and oil hubs and from some questionable comments made by a certain Republican governor. However, nature sometimes doesn't play well with others, so after weeks of the Alaska Volcano Observatory's warnings that the…
eklemetti | February 25, 2009
So, there has been a lot of talk about "volcano monitoring" over the last 24 hours, now hasn't there?
Now, I'm not going to revisit this discussion, but as an example of why it might be important, there is an article today about the location of the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines (near the potentially active caldera Natib). These are the sorts of issues that need to be dealt with in regards to volcano monitoring - the cascading effect of an eruption. During the 1980 eruption of Mt. Saint Helens, there was a chance that volcaniclastic sediment from the eruption could have dammed…
eklemetti | January 31, 2009
The "eruption watch" continues at Redoubt ... Saturday revealed that things are getting hotter at the summit near the 1989/1990 dome (see picture above that made Redoubt famous in 1989). The overflight of the volcano revealed new holes in the summit glacial and a multitude of muddy streams formed from the meltwater. This area of very intense fumarolic activity is just below the 1989/1990 dome (~7,100 feet) and has been growing over the past few days. They also report an area at ~9,000 feet on the volcano that shows signs of ice collapse, indicating heat from underneath the snow and ice (…
eklemetti | December 24, 2008
Well, the holidays (and its visitors) have derailed my blogging ability, so in that note, I will officially declare the Eruptions holiday until 12/30. Merry Christmas (or whatever you celebrate) to all the Eruptions readers - and I just hit the 100,000 visit mark, a great Christmas gift for me! - and I'll catch up with some info on Chaiten, St. Helens and whatever volcano news that has happened in the interim.
eklemetti | October 17, 2008
The only volcanic arc in the lower 48 states continues to be pretty darn quiet according to the USGS. The Cascade range that spans from Lassen Peak in the south to Mt. Baker in the north (and maybe Mt. Garibaldi in Canada) has been remarkably quiet in terms of eruptions for the last century. In fact, only Mt. Saint Helens and Lassen Peak have erupted since 1900 - and most of the volcano have shown very few signs of even coming close to eruption beyond minor seismic swarms, steaming or land deformation. This is in contrast to the reports from the 1800s that suggest that Hood, Shasta, St.…
eklemetti | July 21, 2008
It is always fun to try to comprehend the sorts of numbers that geological processes produce. I mean, how much is 125 million cubic yard exactly? Well, the Cascades Volcano Observatory puts it this way:
"From October 2004 to late January 2008, about 125 million cubic yards of lava had erupted onto the crater floor to form a new dome-enough to pave seven highway lanes three feet thick from New York City to Portland, Oregon. A comparable volume had flowed out to form the 1980s lava dome. All lava erupted since 1980 has refilled about 7% of the crater, which was created by the catastrophic…
eklemetti | July 10, 2008
Just a brief note that the USGS has officially pronounced the eruption that started in 2004 at Mt. Saint Helens over. They lowered the alert level to "normal" after months with little to no signs of activity. The new dome that grew in the crater formed by the 1980 eruption is 125 million cubic yards of new material as the volcano continues to rebuild.
Here is the official USGS Press Release.
Edited 7/10/08 to add the USGS Press Release.
eklemetti | May 17, 2008
Happy 28th anniversary of the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption. The volcano had a catastrophic collapse of one side of the edifice that triggered the climatic eruption. Enjoy this clip from the CBS News from 3 days after the eruption.
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greengabbro | February 19, 2008 I was trawling the USGS photo archive for upcoming Friday Rock Blog candidates when I came across this scanning electron micrograph of wheat. It's from a gargantuan volume published in 1981, full of initial reports about the eruption of Mt. St. Helens.
Why is there a picture of wheat in a book about a volcano?
It turns out people were curious about how quickly material from the ash would be incorporated into the soil nutrient supply, and particularly into crops. So a month after the eruption, USGS scientists sampled wheat and soil from fields that had been ashed on.
The answer? Wheat from…