Mt. Rainier Volcano: Long Period Events Continuing- This is Unusual

A series of long period, tremor type events have been occurring over the last day or two at Mt. Rainier- which as many know, is a very large, and potentially very threatening volcano.

He is an example I have prepared from my rig, showing the spectro and waveforms for one such event:


Now these events are not all that uncommon, and happen from time to time at Rainier. What is unusual is to see so many of them in such a short period of time. And at this point, I would say at least ten of these or so have happened now, in just the short period of a day or so. THAT is not normal, as far as I know.

They are normally associated with fluid movement, such as magma or water, and also could be gas from magmatic degassing. I am on a search for more information, and we'll see if any of the authorities are going to make a statement on this period of unrest. They are currently very low amplitude level, but still, they are there, and the situation merits keeping a close eye on in case of escalation.

Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world, and it is on the Decade Volcano list.

en.wikipedia.org...

And here is an example of another several in a row:


And in that one, we also may have what appears to be a "tornillo". I am looking at the waveform closer to see if that really is one... But if so, that can't be good.

Also, although we saw them at about the same time, ATS member Olivine was first to post about this in the Volcano Watch thread. But this is far too important and needs its own thread, imo. We need eyes on this beast.

Just in case the rest of the world wants to know, this one is in the US, in the state of Washington which is near the West coast. Not t be confused with Washington DC.

P

a reply to: TrueAmerican

That is my ancestral heritage... Rainier. Typical... we are volatile and dangerous.

mwah.
I just want to know who the hell gave the Volcano our name.

Uh oh, I think after further examining that signature, we do indeed have a tornillo:


Note the screw like shape. Now I don't know if tornillos have been seen before at Rainier. But they are notorious for having been present when a group of volcanologists were killed by a volcano when it suddenly exploded on them with very little warning- the tornillos in that case turned out to be nearly the only warning. And it wasn't heeded.

originally posted by: Thurisaz
a reply to: TrueAmerican

That is my ancestral heritage... Rainier. Typical... we are volatile and dangerous.

mwah.
I just want to know who the hell gave the Volcano our name.

Many of the names came from Vancouver's Royal Navy survey parties, who studied the area in the 1791-1795 period. Rainier was an RN Admiral, as was Hood. St Helens was named after Lord St Helens.

I suppose I should also point out that tornillos don't necessarily mean a volcano is going to erupt. A case in point is Little Sitkin in Alaska, which had several hundred of them during a period of unrest, and never erupted. I was watching it, and I think there is thread of mine on here somewhere about it- and saw the tornillos myself- which is how I recognized the signature.

Interestingly, the monitoring page at the CVO shows a few quakes, but the GPS units all seem to be trending upwards lately:

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

You gotta click and zoom in, and look at the gold colored lines for "up".

Note that LP events are never reported on in the monitoring pages, so it's difficult to know about them unless they mention them in an update, or- unless you're a member of ATS.

you guys can watch spectrograms here:

pnsn.org...

Anoither LP just hit, this time stronger. I don't like the looks of this. Let's hope it goes away, and it probably will- but what if it doesn't?

a reply to: TrueAmerican

What is the worse case scenario? Would the volcano shoot out one side, like St. Helens, or blow upwards? When was the last time this volcano exploded, and is there any timeline that it is adhered to in the past? Thanks for the updates.

originally posted by: Aleister
a reply to: TrueAmerican

What is the worse case scenario? Would the volcano shoot out one side, like St. Helens, or blow upwards? When was the last time this volcano exploded, and is there any timeline that it is adhered to in the past? Thanks for the updates.

The volcano last erupted I believe about 1,000 years ago. We can't rule out a sideways blast like Mt St Helens, but that was a somewhat unique circumstance - the conduit to the crater was choked off, so the magma tried to push out a different way. The main threat from Rainier is the lahars that would emerge from it in the event of a major eruption. The volcano is heavily glaciated - a lot of water would melt, creating lethal mudslides. These have happened in the past - according to USGS about 150,000 people live on land that contains deposits from past landslides.

a reply to: Aleister

Check the wiki link provided.

In the meantime, what a Rainier eruption could do:



It would be devastating if the eruption is big enough- and it's been so long since it erupted, I have no doubt that it would probably be on the larger side, since the magma chamber is likely overfull by now. As the video says, "not if, but when..."

Current update watching live spectro: abnormal activity subsided for now.

It's only a matter of time

Mount Rainier Volcano Lahar Warning System

originally posted by: roadgravel
It's only a matter of time

Mount Rainier Volcano Lahar Warning System

And that's the damn problem. It might start to wake up tomorrow, or in a year, or in a hundred years. We just don't know. And all the time we hear the constant drip of idiots who think in terms of human time instead of geological time. "Oh, it hasn't erupted in a century - it must be dead! Lets put another 2,000 houses near it!" Followed inevitably at some point with: "Oops. Well, no-one told me about that wall of superheated air, ash and magma that incinerated them all! Or the torrent of mud that buried them all! I think! Wait, let me get my lawyer..."

a reply to: AngryCymraeg

Wait, let me get my lawyer...

He died too! Sorry.

But since everyone is dead, there is no one to sue you so you are fine.

Besides, just dust off the old 'Act of God' clause.

All good.

P

a reply to: TrueAmerican
I've been checking out the spectros and seismograms since 3:30am east coast time (no, I don't sleep much), and just came to ATS to ask you to start a thread. So very glad to see you have it up!

This first image is from a PNSN blog entry, showing signals from Mt. Rainier, for reference.

source

You can find spectrogram examples generated by a few different types of earthquakes, avalances, wind noise, etc on their spectro FAQ page.

Here is a snippet concerning glaciers and LP's, just to emphasize how difficult it is to differentiate between the two:

Ice-quakes can look very similar to long-period (LP) volcanic earthquakes, with significant energy at frequencies less than 4 Hz.

Read more at the Glacier Noise page

The last time Mt. Rainier got really noisy was winter, Jaunuary 2012. I went back and reread the blog entries from that time, comparing seismos and spectros posted then, to what is going on now.
There is some similarity, but much bigger differences, in my humble and amatuer opinion.

The other difference is the weather. The CVO and PNSN seemed fairly convinced that a storm system prompted the glacier sliding in 2012. The weather on Mt. Rainier has been above freezing the past 2 weeks, except 1 night that dipped into the 20's. NW Avalanche center-Camp Muir
Now if this current activity is glacier related due to warm weather, melt water induced movement, I would expect the other glacier-covered volcanoes to be similarly noisy.
But they aren't. You can check out Baker & Glacier spectros here.

I'm watching too, TrueAmerican!



Oh yeah Flagged!

a reply to: pheonix358

Nine years ago I flew into Naples, passing over the always awe-inspiring Mt Vesuvius. There is something... off about it. It broods. When I saw it from the ground I shivered. And then I saw all the illegal houses that are springing up on the lower slopes. Because, of course, everyone know that it's dead! Isn't it? Oh, wait a sec...

Hi, I see there was a 1.5 quake right under this vocano about an hour ago. I was wondering if its relevant or is it just a regular occurence?

a reply to: TrueAmerican
The Mount Rainier video was very informative.
Thanks for that and being a vigilant member
of all seismicity. Lahars are damn spooky.

a reply to: Olivine

excellent info as always, Oli!

I compared the power spectra, (not spectrogram) signatures of some of these events to the spectra in your chart there, and the bulk of the frequencies seem to be different to anything on that chart. And that has to be the most worrisome thing, because that means they may have not been seen before, since modern monitoring equipment went in.

Now if any of you actually watched that video I posted, that goes into pretty good detail about how deceptive these ice-capped volcanoes can be. When they thought seismicity should have increased at St. Helens, it decreased. When they were looking for increased gas emissions, there were none. That's why I don't trust Rainier at ALL. That ice can be a real deceiver, and cause them to think nothing at all is up, when in fact this thing could blow tomorrow.

Most current update: abnormal activity appears to have subsided.

To answer the other question about that 1.5 quake- normally it is not unusual to get small quakes at Rainier. When they occur amidst LP events, however, they take on new meaning. Gotta watch out, peoples. I'll be keeping the spectro on this sukka with an eagle eye when I can- but gotta go to work in few, so yous better take over. Please.

a reply to: TrueAmerican
I'm watching, I can put off other work for a few hours.


For comparison, here are the LP's from Newberry 4 days ago--announced by the CVO:
They look mighty similar to the Rainier "events" to me...