PLANETARY TREMORS: 2.9 Magnitude Earthquake Recorded Near Mount St. Helens, Washington - USGS!

A 2.9-magnitude earthquake was recorded near Mount Saint Helens Monday morning. © MyNorthwest

February 9, 2016 - WASHINGTON STATE, UNITED STATES - A 2.9-magnitude earthquake hit just south of Mount St. Helens Monday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The quake was recorded at 8:50 a.m.

The earthquake, according to the USGS, wasn't very strong. Only three people reported feeling it, as of 10:30 a.m.

It's the strongest earthquake in Washington in February. A 2.6-magnitude quake was reported Feb. 5 near Tacoma. - MyNorthwest.

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: Seismologists Watching Glacier Peak In Washington - After 4 Earthquakes In Just Under 4 Hours!

Two earthquakes - magnitude 3.1 and 3.5 - struck Wednesday afternoon near Glacier Peak within an hour of each other.
Two more smaller earthquakes struck just hours later. © Earthquake Tracker

November 27, 2015 - SEATTLE, UNITED STATES - Four earthquakes struck within hours of each other Wednesday afternoon near Glacier Peak in Washington.

The first two earthquakes registered at magnitudes 3.1 and 3.5. The first earthquake occurred at 12:11 p.m. The second registered roughly an hour later at 1:20 p.m. Then a third earthquake — a magnitude 1.6 — occurred at 2:33 p.m. And finally a fourth earthquake — a magnitude 1.4 — was registered at 3:44 p.m. All the quakes were recorded roughly 19-21 miles east-southeast of the town of Darrington.

Seth Moran, geophysicist at the University of Washington, tells KIRO Radio they're keeping a close eye on the area and continue to watch the seismic records. "Magnitude 3 earthquakes happen in Washington and Oregon a number of times per year," Moran said. "The one thing that makes these potentially interesting in a different way is they're somewhat close to Glacier Peak."

Glacier Peak (Photo: KING)

The quakes, about three miles from Glacier Peak, occurred where there haven't been a lot of magnitude 3 earthquakes in the past, according to Moran. "The last time there was a magnitude 3 in the vicinity was in 1991," Moran said.

However, there isn't a great network of seismic instruments in the area. There have been no reports of damage or injuries.


WATCH: Mount Rainier is considered the world's most dangerous volcano because of its size and how close it is to population centers, but there's another mountain you've probably never seen that's finally getting attention for the risks it poses.

According to the USGS, the last time Glacier Peak erupted was 1,100 years ago. Mount St. Helens and Glacier Peak are the only volcanoes in Washington state that have been explosive in the past 15,000 years. - My Northwest.

 

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: Could Mount St. Helens Erupt Again - Volcanic Tremors Hint Of Magma Being Injected?!

Earthquakes that occurred before the May 1980 eruption of Mount. St. Helens may have been caused by magma being injected from one chamber to another.
Researchers said more tremors were observed in the area, which could hint of potential eruption.  (Photo : Davgood Kirshot | Pixabay)

November 10, 2015 - PACIFIC NORTHWEST, UNITED STATES - The eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980 has claimed 57 lives and caused serious damage to homes and infrastructure.

Now, scientists have revealed that the volcano could possibly erupt again in the future based on findings of a pioneering $3 million study of the volcano's plumbing system.

Geologists who studied the volcano have found a second enormous chamber lying between seven to 23 miles beneath the surface.

This massive pool of molten rock was found connected to a smaller chamber lying directly beneath the volcano.

How these two chambers are connected is helping scientists understand the sequence of events prior to the 1980 eruption, whose strength of explosion destroyed the topmost peaks of the mountain.

Matching the newly discovered magma reservoirs with earthquake data also sheds light on how the deadliest eruption in U.S. history occurred.

The researchers said that the series of tremors that occurred in the months leading to the 1980 eruption may have been caused by magma pumping from the lower to the upper chamber of the volcano, which caused the pressure inside the upper chamber to dramatically increase resulting in the deadly explosion.

"We can only now understand that those earthquakes are connecting those magma reservoirs," said Rice University seismologist Eric Kiser. "They could be an indication that you have migration of fluid between the two bodies."

Reporting the findings of their study at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Baltimore, Maryland on Nov. 3, the researchers said that more tremors have been observed in the area suggesting that more magma is being injected.

"A cluster of low frequency events, typically associated with injection of magma, occurs at the northwestern boundary of this low Vp column," the researchers reported. "Much of the recorded seismicity between the shallow high Vp/Vs body and deep low Vp column took place in the months preceding and hours following the May 18, 1980 eruption. This may indicate a transient migration of magma between these two reservoirs associated with this eruption."

After the 1980 eruption, the volcano started to erupt again in 2004 but it fell silent in July 2008. Nonetheless, Mount St. Helens is still considered a high risk volcano and is closely monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey. The researchers said that their findings could offer a crucial early warning system of a potential eruption. - Tech Times.

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: Geologists - Hidden Cascades Volcano May Pose A Threat!

Glacier Peak (Photo: KING)

May 20, 2015 - SEATTLE, UNITED STATES - Monday marks the 35th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens that killed 57 people.

Mount Rainier is considered the world's most dangerous volcano because of its size and how close it is to the population centers of Tacoma and Seattle.

But there's another mountain you've probably never seen that's getting attention for the risks it poses to the Seattle area.

Unlike most of the volcanoes in the Cascade Mountains that are viewable from Interstate 5 or even Seattle, few people notice Glacier Peak. It lurks within in the northern Cascades in Snohomish County and has a record of violent, even extreme eruptions.

Jim Vallance a geologist at the Cascades Volcano Observatory, was a young field assistant on Mount St. Helens in the wake of the 1980 eruption. He remembers doing field work on St. Helens in 1979."It was quiet. You may remember if you were an old timer in the Northwest, that Spirit Lake was a blue body of water with cabins all around," said Vallance. "That all changed dramatically in 1980."

"As impressive as it was, Mount St. Helens was actually hundreds of feet shorter than Glacier Peak," Vallance points out. "The summit is right here."

Now his role at the observatory is dedicated to understanding Glacier Peak.

Every year's brief field season is on foot or with the help of pack mules to bring out more samples that lead to more understanding.

"I'm working on a giant four-dimensional puzzle. I'm trying to work out what happened in the past, when did it happen and how often," said Vallance.

When a volcano's glaciers melt during an eruption, it picks up massive amounts of fine dirt and debris. It becomes what's called a lahar.


WATCH: Mount Rainier is considered the world's most dangerous volcano because of its size and how close it is to population centers, but there's another mountain you've probably never seen that's finally getting attention for the risks it poses.

In the case of Glacier Peak, the geological record shows lahars reaching as far away as Mount Vernon, Burlington, Stanwood and Puget Sound by following the Skagit and Stillaguamish rivers.

But while some mountains, including St. Helens and Rainier, are heavily wired with sensors, there is but one lone seismometer on the west flank of Glacier Peak. That's about to change.

Next year, four boxes, each packed with a sensitive seismometer, global positioning antennas and other sensors, will be installed on Glacier Peak. The seismometers can tip off scientists to the first faint signals that magma is on the move.

"Most typical quakes around volcanoes are very small, very low magnitude," said Ben Pauk, a geophysicist who works with sensing technologies.

Then, as seen in the buildup to a 2004 eruption on Mount St. Helens, the quakes are constant.

"It's going to generate what's called volcanic tremor. So the ground is just constantly shaking," said Pauk. "And that gives us a really good indication of what type of eruption is going to occur."

Global positioning antennas measure when the mountain is actually starting to swell.

When could an eruption on Glacier Peak occur? There's no telling, said Vance, remembering that summer of 1979, when Mount St. Helens seemed so quiet.

"It could be this year or a thousand years," he said. - KSDK.

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: Eruption Like Mount St. Helens - "It Will Happen Again In Cascades"!

Plinian column from May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Aerial view from southwest. Mount Adams is in the background (right).
Robert Krimmel photo May 18 1980

May 16, 2015 - U.S. PACIFIC NORTHWEST - Mount St. Helens caught science a little by surprise.

A volcano hadn't erupted on the United State mainland outside Alaska and Hawaii since California's Lassen Peak in early 20th Century.

And modern science had yet to witness an eruption quite like St. Helens.

"I think this was a turning point in the way people approached these kinds of potentially active, explosive volcanoes," said Mike Dungan, a volcanologist with an office at the University of Oregon.

St. Helens didn't just erupt: it blew up.

The force of the May 18, 1980, eruption wasn't just vertical; it was lateral, sending a side of the mountain rocketing down slope as a wall of boiling mud and rock.

The eruption killed 57 people - and put scientists and policy makers on notice.

"It's only a matter of a short time - decades or something - before another one of these things occurs," Dungan said. "A sector collapse eruption like Mount St. Helens - it will happen again in Cascades."

Research at the University of Oregon is shedding new light on the cause of the explosion.

Geologists like PhD student Kristina Walowski are conducting research into how ocean water seeps into offshore plates as they plunge deep into the earth.

"What's really interesting is that water is really important because it lowers the melting temperature of a rock and when that happens you can create magma," she said.

Mount St. Helens viewed aerially from the northeast before the 1980 eruptive activity. Dashed line marks boundary of area removed by the May 18 blast.

"The water is really the key thing that causes the expansion, just like when champagne comes jetting out of a bottle," said Paul Wallace, professor geological science at UO. "It's a foamy material because of the gas present in gas bubbles."

The May edition of Nature Geoscience published the findings by the Oregon team, funded by a National Science Foundation Grant.

"Ultimately the water that makes them so explosive is coming out of the ocean," Wallace said. "And eventually as the plate moves like a conveyor belt, it gets returned back down into the inside of the earth.."


WATCH: Eruption like Mount St. Helens - 'It will happen again in Cascades'.

"It's not like you're pouring cups of water into the interior of the earth, right?" Walowski said. "There's a complicated set of reactions and breakdowns where these rocks are changing shape, and releasing water little by little by little."

So which of the Cascade volcanoes is next in line to erupt?

It's difficult to predict, but geologists are watching.

"We're really in the midst of a technology explosion when it comes to monitoring volcanoes, using all kinds of things using remote sensing instruments on satellites," Wallace said.

"Mount St. Helens is still the most frequent in the Cascades," Walowski said, "and based on that, it may be the most likely to go again." - KVAL.

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: USGS - Magma Rising In Washington State's Mount St. Helens Volcano!

May 01, 2014 - SEATTLE, UNITED STATES - Magma levels are slowly rebuilding inside Mount St. Helens, a volcano in Washington state that erupted in 1980 and killed 57 people, although there was no sign of an impending eruption, U.S. scientists said.

Visitors to the Coldwater Ridge Center look up at Mount St. Helens venting steam October 11, 2004.
REUTERS/Andy Clark

The roughly 8,300-foot volcano erupted in an explosion of hot ash and gas on May 18, 1980, spewing debris over some 230 square miles and causing more than a billion dollars in property damage. Entire forests were crushed and river systems altered in the blast, which began with a 5.2 magnitude earthquake.

"The magma reservoir beneath Mount St. Helens has been slowly re-pressurizing since 2008," the U.S. Geological Survey said in a statement on Wednesday. "It is likely that re-pressurization is caused by (the) arrival of a small amount of additional magma 4 to 8 km (2.5 to 5 miles) beneath the surface."

The USGS said this is to be expected with an active volcano and does not indicate "the volcano is likely to erupt anytime soon."

The USGS, and the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at University of Washington, closely monitor ground deformation and seismicity at the volcano. This summer, they will also measure its released gases and gravity field, measurements that can be used to monitor subsurface magma and forecast eruptions. - Yahoo.

GLOBAL VOLCANISM: New Research - Mega-Quakes Caused Volcanoes In Earth's Subduction Zones To Sink!

June 30, 2013 - EARTH - Massive earthquakes can cause distant volcanoes to sink, according to research in Japan and Chile published on Sunday. The magnitude 9.0 tsunami-generating quake that occurred off northeastern Japan in 2011 caused subsidence of up to 15 centimeters (9.3 inches) in a string of volcanoes on the island of Honshu as much as 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the epicenter, a Japanese study said.

And the 8.8 magnitude Maule quake in Chile in 2010 caused a similar degree of sinking in five volcanic regions located up to 220km (130 miles) away, according to a US-led paper. It was not clear whether the phenomenon boosted eruption risk, the authors wrote. Both the Japan and Chile quakes were of the subduction type, caused when one part of Earth’s crust slides beneath another. If the movement is not smooth, tension can build up over decades or centuries before it is suddenly released, sometimes with catastrophic effect. In both cases, the sinking occurred in mountain ranges running horizontally to the quake.

The 2011 quake “caused east-west tension in eastern Japan,” Youichiro Takada of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute at Kyoto University told AFP in an email. “Hot and soft rocks beneath the volcanoes, with magma at the centre, were horizontally stretched and vertically flattened. This deformation caused the volcanoes to subside.” The researchers for the Chilean volcanoes said subsidence occurred along a stretch spanning 400km (250 miles).

As in Japan, the ground deformation in Chile occurred in huge ellipse-shaped divots up to 15km by 30km (nine miles by 18 miles) in size, although the cause appears to be different. Pockets of hot hydrothermal fluids that underpinned the volcanic areas may have escaped through rock that had been stretched and made permeable by the quake.

Two earthquakes in the Chilean subduction zone in 1906 and 1960 were followed by eruptions in the Andean southern volcanic zone within a year of their occurrence. However, no big eruptions in this volcanic hotspot can be associated with the 2010 temblor, says the study led by Matthew Pritchard of Cornell University in New York. Takada said the impact of the 2011 quake on volcano risk on Honshu was unclear.

“At this stage we do not know the relation between volcanic eruption and the subsidence we found. Further understanding of the magmatic movement would be necessary,” he said. The subsidence in Japan was spotted at the volcanoes Akitakoma, which last erupted in 1971; Kurikoma (1950); Zao (1940); Azuma (1977); and Nasu (1963). The studies, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, used data from satellite radar which mapped terrain before and after the quakes. - Times of India.