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Giant Rock Growing in Mount St. Helens' Crater
An anonymous reader writes to mention a CNN article about the huge geological formation growing in Mount St. Helens' crater. From the article: "The fin-shaped mass is about 300 feet tall and growing 4 feet to 5 feet a day, said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. The rock in the crater began growing last November, steadily moving west and pushing rock and other debris out of its way as it goes." Scientists think the mountain will eventually replace the lave dome blown out by the original 1980 eruption.
Red hot lave?
I guess st helen can expect to have her world rocked pretty soon!
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
Maybe it's just happy to see you.
Or maybe it's that sexy mountain next door.
It's the Martians. They buried their attack force in Mt. St. Helens millenia ago, and now they've come to claim our world for themselves!
Note to self: Do not give brother access to account.
this one time in geometry class i developed a 'huge formation', and then the teacher called me to work out a problem on the board!
the girls all laughed at me. hopefully mt. st. helens won't have that problem.
I wonder how long it would take for the old dome to be rebuilt? Didn't find it anywhere in that article.
...it's Microsoft Bob, exacting his revenge!
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Arrrrr, mateys! She's gonna blow, I tell ya.
"Given the way things are going now, there's no hint of any sort of catastrophic eruptions," USGS geologist Tom Pierson said. "At any time, however, things can change."
I hate quotes like that in news stories. They amount to "there's nothing happening right now, and I dont know if anything is going to happen, as the situation could change as soon as I finish telling you everything is fine". An eight-year-old could have offered us as much insight.
So this is only marginally on topic, but the story reminded me of a video I saw when I was a kid, I think featuring the Kraffts, that talked about a sulfuric lake caused by volcanic activity. I seem to recall the hosts of the video talking about someone's skin being eaten away by the acid in the lake, but I can't find anything on it in a quick google search. Has anyone else heard about this lake or this gruesome skin story? Now I've got the image in my head and I want to read more about it. I'm drawn to it like a train wreck. Well, a train carrying vats of sulfuric acid, at least.
while (!sleep){
sheep++;
}
It was on a Sunday if I recall (I was all of 9 years old)and I slept right through it. Some people claimed they could hear it, and you could see a funny shaped cloud on the horizon if you squinted real hard. I kept waiting for the predicted ash fall, but it never got as far as Seattle.
I visited the mountain some years later, and I can't begin to describe how small I felt looking at the devestation. Miles and miles of forests flattened, all the trees lined up in the same direction, following the contours of the hills. Everything coated in a layer of fine ash. Scary, in a "look how freakin' insignificant you are" kinda way.
If you ever go, be sure to bring a lantern and visit Ape Caves, a 5 mile long lava tube near the base of the mountain. It's an easy hike even if you've never been in a cave before, and unlike most caves the sole improvement is a rickety metal staircase leading down in the middle. You can hike 2.5 miles up and exit out where it collapsed, and/or hike 2.5 miles down and it gets really narrow and stops. (By "up" and "down" I just mean the thing runs down the side of the mountain, so one end is higher than the other, not that it goes straight up and down.)
As for this latest development, 5 feet per day?! Wow, that's pretty dang fast. I'd heard a new lava dome was growing, but this speed is certainly a new develpment. Still, it will take a long time to get back to its former size. Over 1,000 vertical feet of mountain got blown off the top, and most of one side slid away.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
or just one of those lamps?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I took it that he was reassuring folks that right now, there's no need to panic or anything like that. I'm sure there's plenty of folks who lived through the first eruption are getting a little freaked right now.
it seems that 3d virtual environments are getting pretty good. lots of people playing WOW and 2nd life, simms...
When I see an article like this - I want a 3D environment. I want to download the "map -o- the crater" and be able to fly around and see what it's really like there.
it wouldn't need to be that detailed, or be a replacement for pictures. it's just that I can't seem to get a sense for the size or the scope of what we're talking about.
3D standards litter the last 10 years like dead bodies in war zones - but it still is nice to dream.
Land Shark!
Or, it will explode like it did in 1980. Hmm...it had a large formation back then and exploded, it is making a large formation now, but will just fill in the GIHUGION crater it made the first time. How bout gather your stuff up now and run for it.
Click Click Bloody Click PANCAKES!
Katamari do your best!
By the time you've rhymed one line, I've already busted ten; You rap in exponential time and I'm big-O of log(n).
Actually it's a section of the huge spherical spacecraft that crashed to earth long ago, punching a hole in the crust which resulted in the volcano. The wreckage is now being pushed to the surface.
You heard it here, first!
Apparantly Ape Cave is only three miles long, not five, according to wikipedia, which is never, ever wrong. But it is still the third longest lava tube in the US. Must have seemed bigger when I was eleven.
Three. Three. And we'd better not risk another frontal assault. That rabbit's dynamite.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Looks like Sin from FFX.
TFA links to a "volcano cam"
http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/
I remember seeing this movie before.
Can't Hollywood do anything original anymore?
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Bullshit. You forgot to tick 'Post Anonymously' in your hurry to get FP, didn't you? Be a man, and admit it.
Ah yes, that final boss from Quake, right?!?
reading more into the eruption... found some cool before and after pics
8 0_st_helens_from_johnston_ridge_05-17-80_med.jpg
8 0_st_helens_from_johnston_ridge_09-10-80_med.jpg
Before:
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Imgs/Jpg/MSH/Images/MSH
After:
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Imgs/Jpg/MSH/Images/MSH
wow
It's how the dolphins are planning to get off the planet.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Who's the lucky father?
Thank you, thank you.
Try the veal, and don't forget to tip your waitress.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
The lava dome was was not blown out in the 1980 eruption. The upper thousand-plus feet of the mountain were blown out. A lava dome formed in the time period after the major eruptions of 1980 and that lava dome was blown out later, I think around 1985.
Its origin and purpose still a total mystery.
The universes largest pimple.
One of these days pressure is going to build up, there will be another erruption, and that ball will be blown into outer-space.
"IT'S NOT A TUMOR!"
The current eruption has been going on since september/october 2004 and has built 7 of these formations, named spines, so far. This last one is not even the largest of these.
The old lava dome was not built during the "1980 eruption" which was a Plinian, explosive event triggered by a massive landslide. The old lava dome was built during quiescent eruptions, just like this one, in the period 1980-1986.
I was pretty young.. but I sort of remember..
It was a Sunday (for the first bigger eruption in 1980). We were supposedly in the 'safe zone', but we all know how that went. We had just gotten up out of the tents when the ground shook continuously for minutes like an earthquake.. Then we could see a grey cloud rising up near the horizon.
Very quickly, the cloud appeared to go so high that it was over us. There was lightning at the edge of the cloud. Rain began to fall immediately, I remember it was warm and black.. Looking closely at a drop you could see the individual ash particles.
By that time, we had pulled up the tent with everything in side it and threw it in the back of the truck in a single motion.
The ride back to Yakima, WA was slow, and the visibility was just about zero. It was hard to breath and the roads were jammed with panic'd people.. We later found out that the campground we were at was covered in a large amount of burning hot mud.
When we got home there was ash everywhere, and it stayed dark for what seemed like days. I remember wearing a mask for weeks afterwards to go outside.
Giant Rock Growing in Mount St. Helens' Crater
Oh, yeah. No innuendo there.
If it does, you cant stop it. It will be impervious to
spam, viruses, and all other malware.
I recall reading a book about a nanotech mountain suddenly appearing on earth. It was in the Death Valley though, and was actually a fake spaceship, placed there by hostile aliens about to destory the planet. We ought to look around there and see if there are any anvil-headed aliens lying nearby. The book was The Forge of God by Greg Bear, and it wasn't particularly good, although one might want to read it for background, complimentary to its sequel, The Anvil of Stars, which is superb.
you mean overlady!
Giant paper.
Follow the adventures of the new wandering jews
Everybody out of the lava right now!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This was in the Science times about 3 months ago.
an anneuroid or a hemorrhism. Or, just a volcanic hemorrhoid...
It's a good thing that kind of thing doesn't follow a heavy night of drinking or too much cake and sausage and soda pop...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
"...there's nothing happening right now, and I dont know if anything is going to happen, as the situation could change as soon as I finish telling you everything is fine. An eight-year-old could have offered us as much insight."
This looks more like the work of Geraldo Rivera. Comparing the reporting to the work of an eight-year old is giving more credit than deserved. Geraldo is a better baseline for comparison.
Can you go there on foot? bcz before long people will be visiting that place and staring in wonder and then the lava will erupt and then...
Is that a fin-shaped geological formation growing in your crater just before an eruption, or are you just happy to see me?
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
This latest activity is normal for a volcano that typically erupts more silicic lava. The magma at depth is generally more viscous and after an eruption the momentum of the magma migration slows, but still continues to rise up through the vent due to residual pressure beneath the volcano. This type of thing occurs quite a bit at another volcano in Kamchatka, Russia, called Bezymianny. The dome builds up, then collapses, then rebuilds, etc. The USGS should no doubt be concerned with the growth of the dome at MSH, as a major collapse can easily cause a pyroclastic flow...nasty stuff. Questions remain, however, how much more magma is beneath the volcano and what is the rate of replenishment?
This isn't bad for a flyover prior to the current eruption: http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=1549, which should give you a sense of scale. Combine this with some of the images from the links below, and you'll have a much better sense of it. Visiting is of course best.
e ntActivity/current_updates.html
4 /framework.html
H 04/framework.html.
The model is from an earlier image series by NASA, prior to this building/eruption stage which started last late September/early October. The current fin is actually one of a series, with the first characterized as the whale back as I remember it, with each crumbling eventually, losing elevation, and another fin starting further to the West and South I believe. Details at the excellent USGS site for Helens and the eruption: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/Cascades/Curr
Also, the main page: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Eruption0
Image pages (AMAZING shots, thermal images, etc): http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Images/MS
Were Bobby and Whitney in that helicopter?
Ferchrissake, someone tell them to make some time lapse video already!
This' got to be the one of the most active geological events going (i.e., building an entire stinkin' mountiain in, like, 5 years?), and all they got is a couple of still shots.
IANAV (I am not a vulcanologist), and don't want to seem alarmist to the good people of Washington state, but doesn't this look worryingly like the prelude to a pelean type eruption?
(Named after the eruption in 1902 of Montaigne Pelee on the island of Martinique, which killed some 20,000 people.)
Any rock jocks out there want to put up some new routes?
.. giant paper and giant scissors.
NO KILL I
The Great Ghost Dance has begun. Beware! Seattle!
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I was in Eugene, Oregon when it blew in the 80's. I heard and felt a double blow all the way from there. All the Windows in the neighborhood were rattling. The news may keep saying it blew the top off, but that's wrong. Most of the mountain came down in a landslide. Once the landslide started, the pressure blew up and in the direction of the slide. It's the biggest landslide in recorded history. Watch out because when Rainier slides, it will be bigger. Scientists believe it's overdue. There are deposits from a previous slide in Seattle.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
I guess I should have RTFA.
Ops, I shuld have usd the prevuwe but in.
A) It's not a creation myth
B) Neither I nor the USGS take it any more seriously than any other myth
C) It's a follow-up to a comment that is obviously a joke
D) All of the above
E) User ID 116316's sense of humor is down for maintenance today.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
As the lavadome and spike grows, small rock-falls happen quite regularly. When they happen at night, the hot rock glows in the near-IR and is captured by the US Forest Service Volcanocam http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/. There's also a website that collects the individual images and generates daily animations of outbursts of the volcano http://www.luscombe-carter.com/mount_st_helens/ind ex.html.
This just might cause another big boom .. Stick your finger in the dike, eventually it will burst..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
that either Godzilla or aliens in space ships are gonna spring out of that. In either case they're gonna start destroying everything in their path.
So how do we give them directions to Redmond?
Apparently back in July the tip of the "whaleback fin" broke off.
OMG
Brokeback Mountain?!?
...or are you just happy to see me?
Thank you. Here all week.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom