Slashdot Mirror
Mount St. Helens Shoots Steam, Ash
Wynken de Word writes "Months after the preliminary signs starting showing, Washington State's Mount St. Helens is sending a plume of steam and ash 7,600 metres into the air as of Tuesday, 17:25 PST. See the U.S. Geological Survey site for more updates and, come daylight, check out the Mount St. Helens VolcanoCam."
I live less than 50 miles from St Helens, and I heard about this on Slashdot first.
my photoblog entry tonight:
p =131
http://www.euphorochrome.com/photoblog/index.php?
NWCN site has a video the "Take a look inside the crater" http://www.nwcn.com/ link shows... well inside the crater. You have to sign up.
Probably aren't any yet. Any flow should have been confined to the crater and obscured by ash and steam. The event came just before local sunset. Things may be clearer in the morning.
The Mt. St. Helens webcam sometimes picks up the infared glow of exposed lava after dark. It went offline Friday, but service was fortunately restored this afternoon -- just hours before St. Helens burped. Check to see whatever can be seen here. My site also has some background on the webcam.
KPTV has some impressive stills of the ash plume here.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
Damn Global Warming
I was flying home from SEA -> SJC this evening and saw the thing happen from 20,000 feet. The ash shot up and within a few minutes was at the same altitude as our still-climbing 737. Within a few minutes the ash was well above our altitude and the Captain came on and stated that it seemed to him to be well above 30,000 feet. Needless to say, we flew well clear of the plume.
That being said, it was an amazing sight to see this huge jet of ash go so high, so quickly. The late afternoon sun lit it just right and I really wish I had had a camera.
This was reported 24 years ago!
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Eruption04 /Monitoring/plume_in_the_evening_8march05.html
This has some pretty good photos, as well as a picture with (MS Paint?) editing describing what's what.
The photos are taken from a remote camera on the mountain that takes a picture every 2.5 minutes. This is as good as it gets.
That could be hot gas. Look up the words "nueé ardente".
Andesitic lavas have more water in them than tholiitic. That is why volcanos on or near continental margins explode violently and lavas from island chains only shoot ~30 meters into the air.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Months after the preliminary signs starting showing, Washington State's Mount St. Helens is sending a plume of steam and ash 7,600 metres into the air.
It's incorrect to imply, as the posting does, that the earlier activity is "preliminary", and that now the real action is going to get going. We are, in all likelihood, in a dome-building phase. It will have natural variation, times of activity and times of quiescence, just as the volcanic system has on a geologic time scale. There is no reason to expect a large explosive event in the near future.
-David Hirsch Asst. Professor of geology
What is interesting is that there was absolutely ZERO warning. There had been some minor tremors in the hours before, but nothing that would indicate something on this scale.
Personally, I think someone slipped the volcano some lima beans.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)