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Mt. St. Helens' Grumbling May Presage Eruption
stand writes "The Seattle Times is reporting (press release here) that scientists believe that there is a 'significant chance of a small eruption of Mt. St. Helens in the days or weeks ahead.' There have been a series of earthquakes at the site in the last few days. I think it's about time Washington state took over the natural disaster coverage from Florida, don't you?"
Anyone else from the area remember the first time? I was 7, playing in my house in Longview, Wa. We heard the news, went out in the backyard and watched the mushroom cloud. Then got inside as about 3 inches of ash piled up on everything. We had to wear little paper masks to go outside....
.-=Wit is educated insolence=-. -Aristotle
I also was 7 when it blew the first time. I was living in Missoula, MT, about 500 miles away. Being young, I didn't know much about volcanoes and was expecting to see lava come rolling down the valley. I didn't know what to think when it started 'snowing' grey stuff. We also had to wear the masks to go outside to clean it up. We had about an inch of ash.
Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
I disagree with your premise. Unfortunate events in the 1980 eruption are not a valid reason not to trust the experts today.
For one thing, we know a lot more about Mt. St. Helens and Cascade volcanoes today than we did then. By that I mean since the 1980 eruption the behaviors of the mountain have been extremely carefully studied and monitored. Every aspect of the eruption has been reviewed countless times. St. Helens is one of the best studied stratovolcanoes in the world. Scientists have swarmed over every square foot of the mountain, listened to it 24 hours a day with seismographs, and carefully monitored every aspect of its development. We've also applied our knowledge gained from the 1980 event and subsequent eruptions to other volcanoes, and re-applied the additional knowledge back to St. Helens. The range of possible behaviors in an eruption have been much more tightly constrained. With the benefit of today's knowledge the human toll of the eruption would be dramatically diminished.
Second, just because certain mistakes were made once it does imply they will be made again, let alone that any of the circumstances are similar.
Third, the potential for a catastrophic eruption is virtually nil, and any misjudgements will almost necessarily be smaller in absolute terms. For example, if someone predicted a steam explosion would spread rock fragments around the crater, but instead fifty cubic meters of ash erupted, the person making the prediction would be totally wrong, but the effect would be negligible. Right now there isn't any reason to think any significant volume of magma is moving through the mountain, and without a lot of magma there's only so much damage you can do. And again, it's very difficult not to notice a large volume of magma moving through the mountain. This time there's no giant bulge on the side of the mountain, etc. There's already been a climactic eruption. It'll be difficult for there to be another similar one since (as already noted) there's no evidence of any magma (which is a prerequisite), and much of the mountain is already gone! It would be like burning down your house: it would be hard to burn it down again the next day.
If we shouldn't trust the people who have studied the mountain, then whom should we trust? Do you recommend people run screaming through the streets or move to Kansas or something? What do you imagine happening, and what basis do you have to think it might happen?
The "experts" are indeed experts, and are very dedicated to understanding the mountain and predicting its behavior.