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

Thanks so much TA and Olivine for your usual thoughtful info and analysis. I have been very concerned, for some time, about Rainier...without really much to account for it. (Other than the fact that I have good friends in Puyallup.)

I'll stop biting my nails now and just go back to feeling chronic mild unease.

This is probably just a case of a GPS instrument having a bad couple of days....but check out the monument at Camp Shurman, NE flank of Mount Rainier:

Cleaned/Detrended data was last updated on Sunday the 21st of September:



Showing a significant excursion to the NE and Up--looks to have occurred over 2 weeks; maybe a bit longer.
(FYI, the blue dot data is unconfirmed, the red is pretty well "set in stone")

Now check out the Regional tab of the same station, updated a few hours ago:


What the heck happened?
NW movement of almost a meter, and up by 35 cm?
Did it get hit by rock or avalanche possibly?
None of the other working stations show anything similar.

I don't think the detrended/cleaned data will update until Sunday, so the waiting begins to suss out what is really going on.

I am horrible with the screen shot thing but True you need to look at this Harmonic here. I have no idea but this does not look good.

volcanoes.usgs.gov...

The RCM station just to the south east of the summit at 10:30 and at 12:15 then a sharp kick at 13:30 all on 9/27

Check out this Seattle Times article describing an expedition to study the ice caves in Mount Rainier's summit craters last week. Stunning photos--be sure to explore the panoramic clickable image.



I'd climb Rainier in a heartbeat, but go under the ice in the summit craters--no thank you.

Still no update to the detrended GPS data...hmmm.

Rainier only took a break from the "glacier induced signatures" for a few days. It's been chugging along for the past week.
Now the tiny earthquakes are back, and very shallow today. (The 3 this morning have been manually reviewed)


The RCS station GPS data has been updated. This image shows the cleaned data over the past year.

source

It looks like it has jumped approximately 70 cm northwest and 32 cm upward. Strange that the other operational stations show nothing.

Remember when we were discussing the repeating quakes back in 2012 with folks from the PNSN, in this thread?

I found that we got a semi-snarky shout out on one of their personal web pages.
(scroll to the bottom)
I'd prefer she label us as enthusiastic students versus conspiracy theorists, but I'll wear that tin foil hat proudly, too.

She has set up an automatic detection system for the repeating quakes; but access is password protected.

I want to show again why TA made this thread--also from Ms. Allstadt's linked page above.

There are no known clear ways from the waveforms alone to discriminate shallow earthquakes related to volcanic activity from glacial earthquakes, both repeating and non-repeating, on highly glaciated volcanoes. This can make volcano monitoring difficult and is a topic we are currently researching.

It's tricky.

a reply to: Olivine

So what she's saying is that they may be volcanic rather than glacial??

Did I understand that correctly, or am I just dim?

a reply to: Jansy
I don't know what she thinks of the current activity, but the repeating earthquakes back in 2010 and 2012, she and others seemed convinced were caused by glaciers moving down Rainier.

In the quote I linked, she concedes that the signals generated by glaciers, and signals generated by volcanic processes can be impossible to tell apart by seismogram only.

a reply to: Olivine

Thanks for the clarification.

.

Just a small earthquake update from Mount Rainier.

There was a shallow Mag 2.9 near the east flank of the volcano this afternoon. This is the spectrogram.



Here is a look at the location courtesy of the PNSN.


Stilling watching to see if anything develops...

Ugh, that small earthquake has disappeared from the PNSN recent quake page. It is still on usgs, but probably not for long.

They must have decided it was an avalanche, rockfall, or glacial sliding...sorry for the misinformation.
I swear, just when I think I am getting better at interpreting the seismos and spectrograms; tricked again.

*shuffles off mumbling, "It sure looked like an earthquake signature...."