What's going on Three Sisters Volcano

I'll be hiking part of the Pacific Crest Trail near that area in a few weeks. I've always thought that of the ways to go, death by volcano would make for an awesome story.

It was nice talking with ya'll; I hope someone makes a thread commemorating me.

On topic though, is there anything I could look for while in the area? Any low tech equipment I could take to detect tremors?

No, this is not instrument failure as mentioned. I have been watching GEE station CC.WIFE.BHE, CC.WIFE.BHN and CC.WIFE.BHZ. All stations are humming along at around 600 +/- microns. For those of you who are not familiar with GEE it is another Seismic monitoring system. I am quiet distressed yet again with Them. All plots and charts and quake depth etc. for the Sisters has not been updated in many, many months, if not years depending on what search you are doing, hence the search really begins. On another note, the Deep tremors continues along the Cascades. The Scientists in charge are also stumped. Here is the latest release which as always is a day behind. It appears They are even stumped as to what is going on. The tremors are now breaking up into individual clusters which is abnormal. These deep tremors are different than the tremors we are viewing on the seismo's at the Sisters. But, the deep tremors may be the cause of what could be jumping this area into motion.

In reply to JonnyTHSeed. Please just keep checking in before your hike.

[edit on 23-8-2010 by Anmarie96]

I've been checking sites too - not very good at updating anything. Can you provide links to what you are checking on now. Also we have Ham radios, any idea where I might get some info there? My fiance is currently scanning around but its difficult to know where to go.

Sorry about asking for the link - I checked what you provided, they do seem concerned - maybe we will get an update soon.

reply to post by Anmarie96


I had a look at both recorders on the EHZ channel as far back as I can (14th) They both seem to have lucid moments but basically they are both suffering from dementia. Actually I suspect the recorders are OK but the telemetry relay link is broken which is why there are moments where they are working and then they are gone again.

I did make a sound file of the period 17:00 to 21:00 UTC for this plot as this is clear pretty much before and after and has the typical signal in between. HUO.UO..EHZ.2010.230

I have not bothered to upload the sound file since there is nothing to listen to. The big signal is just empty hiss and the tail end has a very slight almost inaudible rumbling which might be distant seismic activity, but none of it is harmonic tremor in any way shape or form.

This is the spectrum for that slice of the plot. See how sharp it is. Obviously not natural.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/2b6eb827f569.png[/atsimg]

I guess harrytuttle is probably right.

Edit: Here is a small pic of the plot as it will be gone in 4 days.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/9f0c30783829.png[/atsimg]

[edit on 23/8/2010 by PuterMan]

reply to post by PuterMan


Thank you for your input Puterman - as always I/We look forward to your thinking. The relays would make sense but I am not convinced as I am seeing abnormal things on more than one network. I think I will be taking this up with Them tomorrow for clarification as to what They can say on the matter. Better yet, as we know They are following all of this, it would be nice if They would make a statement in Their weekly update as to the instruments . While I'm at it, it would be nice if They would update all Their other data to date as well - we can't do everything for Them. Links to the old not updated data tomorrow when I am on high speed - not that it does us any good.

Had a look at the WIFE graph and could't see anything unusual. Except some P-wave readings from the 6.1 eq earlier for today.
All seems quite for the past days in the Three- Sisters area, but may be it's me looking at the wrong graph.

www.pnsn.org...

Nid

Nice call oh all knowledgeable Puterman (you've come a long way in a few months with quakes )

I wrote to the USGS this morning and just received a response. This was the reply from the nice fellow:

Hi Anmarie,

Thanks for your interest in the goings-on at Three Sisters. Our radio system that relays signals from FRIS and HUO is on the fritz at the moment, and that is causing the noisy tremor-like signal (what you are seeing is equivalent to the static noise you get from your radio when it is tuned to a channel that has no radio signal on it). We are working on repairing the radios, and hope to have the problem solved soon (hopefully by the end of the week). In the meantime you can look at another station (WIFE SHZ CC) to keep tabs on Three Sisters-area seismicity. It can be accessed at www.pnsn.org...

Cheers,

Seth Moran
Volcano Seismologist
David A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory
U.S. Geological Survey
1300 SE Cardinal Court, Bldg 10
Vancouver, WA 98683
[email protected]


I am very glad to hear this. I still have a problem though - in doing research in order to try and figure all this out, I found that Three Sisters is on the Very High Threat List of Volcanoes, which I knew but monitoring at Three Sisters is seriously lacking - you can download the report from Here . While they are planning to install more equiptment and instruments, they have not yet as I found out trying to obtain information for this Thread.

reply to post by Anmarie96

Nice follow through

reply to post by Anmarie96


Great info! Thanks for the taking the time to devote to this, it had a lot of wondering.

I agree about the lack of coverage. I didn't realize how volatile the three sisters were until I started looking closer. 50 mil cubic feet of magma is nothing to laugh at.

It also makes me a little nervous that right now, during the current swarm of deep tremors, etc. the stations closest to the action are not working. I thought all of our volcanoes were covered a bit better than that!

reply to post by Anmarie96


This just goes to prove the benefit of 'listening' to the seismos as well as looking at them. Yes tuning your radio where there is no signal is a very good description of what I described as 'hiss'

The tremors are now breaking up into individual clusters which is abnormal.

(from an earlier post)

I said it before - remember the film tremors?

Clusters of worms, that's what it is. Scientists, sheesh, they know nothing!

reply to post by Anmarie96


Thanks so much, I do feel better now. It would have been good if these situations were posted on their site.