Something Is Happening At Glacier Peak, Washington NOW (1/25/11)

I doubt the observed seismic activity is anything out of the ordinary. Volcanoes generate small earth tremors on a fairly continuos basis. As others have noted, there are many types of observations which indicate a possible immenent volcanic eruption. In the case of Mount St. Helens, I recall that a very big lava dome built up for weeks before it finally gave way.

Mount Baker isn't dormant, but the most notable indicator of activity is the occasional release of steam and I think it has been decades since that happened.

The most threatening volcano in the Pacific northwest is Mount Ranier. If it erupts, it is quite possible that several Seattle suburbs will be threatened by pyroclastic flows.

None of these tremors made the local news, this side of the border however there is an earthquake drill happening in Vancouver today.

reply to post by bluestreak53


While you are spot-on with most of what you said, I have to disagree about it not being out of the ordinary.

Glacier peak is not as active like Rainier, Baker or Helens. It hasn't even had a micro quake for over three years. I have never seen an event (other than a large quake) show up on all the monitors such as this did.

Like AnnMarie said, this isn't the kind of thing the scientist run out and yell in the streets. Since whatever it was stopped, they are likely first going to figure out what (if any) event happened and what it means before they say anything about it.

That's right, there is and It was on the News yesterday. A little short notice?! It's called the Great British Columbia Shake Out. It starts at 10 am. this morning. If after !0 am, I do not place an,"I'm ok." Fraser Valley is under water. and I have my scuba gear on.

The Space Weather 12-hour Boulder-USGS Magnetometer Monitor is showing some very odd readings today.

www.swpc.noaa.gov...

reply to post by n55rc


I wish I knew how to read that. Should it just be a steady line?

I found another great article on Glacier. The more I read about it, the more I am glad that if for no other reason, I at least am aware of it now. I had now idea it was RIGHT there. If you read the article, it mentions skagit valley could be wiped out by lahars, as they would go down the skagit river. Great. I am very much in that zone.

LINK

A mudflow 5,000 years ago deposited nearly 10 cubic miles of material into the Skagit Valley — five times the amount of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, according to research by Dragovich. Like Darrington, the cities of Lyman, Sedro-Woolley and Burlington, are built on lahar deposits from Glacier Peak, he wrote.

Didn't realize my house was sitting on an old lahar!!

Glacier Peak has three seismometers and no GPS monitoring stations. Ideally, it should have 15 to 20 devices, but currently there is no money for that, said Cynthia Gardner, scientist in charge at the USGS' Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.

Originally posted by gemineye
reply to post by westcoast

 

I don't know much about reading these, but I'm assuming this isn't normal! A couple of those look scary, even to my untrained eye.

Keep us updated! Have you actually felt any quakes? I hope nothing big happens!

Actually its quite normal. As the Earth nears the peek of its cycle, the magnetic/gravitational fields pull on Earth like a rubber ball. As we near the end of this cycle, I imagine seismic activity will increase, then decrease after the peek cycle has passed. My advice, have an out if you live near a volcano... always.

reply to post by JustMike


No worries and no need to apologise.

My concern at sensationalism was more at the thread title, I felt it a bit unnecessarily dramatic.

General observances in the area with facts on previous and current data, to establish if current activity was actually out of the norm or not and how this fits in with the current concerns regarding Earth's geophysics would be more relevant.

As it is, it appears that the 'somethings happening NOW' was more normal than abnormal.

Originally posted by westcoast
reply to post by n55rc

 

I wish I knew how to read that. Should it just be a steady line?

I found another great article on Glacier. The more I read about it, the more I am glad that if for no other reason, I at least am aware of it now. I had now idea it was RIGHT there. If you read the article, it mentions skagit valley could be wiped out by lahars, as they would go down the skagit river. Great. I am very much in that zone.

LINK

A mudflow 5,000 years ago deposited nearly 10 cubic miles of material into the Skagit Valley — five times the amount of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption, according to research by Dragovich. Like Darrington, the cities of Lyman, Sedro-Woolley and Burlington, are built on lahar deposits from Glacier Peak, he wrote.

Didn't realize my house was sitting on an old lahar!!

Glacier Peak has three seismometers and no GPS monitoring stations. Ideally, it should have 15 to 20 devices, but currently there is no money for that, said Cynthia Gardner, scientist in charge at the USGS' Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash.

[/quote

With any luck, WestCoast, you and I could jar some of that mud go to all the spas. With all that great mud in our back yards; we'd be bazillionaires. It's a thought. Just trying to keep light, with the drill looming and all. I called my kid at university to tell her to be safe, if something does happen. She says it's just a drill. Hope she's right.

Funny how today is the Great Shake out drill for the NW.
Hope it's just that...a drill.
Wondering why I live in the NW with all these great volcanoes surrounding me??
Oh yeah..it's so beautiful here. I guess I'd rather die in a place that looks live heaven than die in a place that reminds me of hell. LOL

Originally posted by westcoast

Like AnnMarie said, this isn't the kind of thing the scientist run out and yell in the streets. Since whatever it was stopped, they are likely first going to figure out what (if any) event happened and what it means before they say anything about it.

Yup. Volcanologists are like little kids on Christmas when there is even a hint something important and noteworthy. My father was on the Mt St Helens team in 1980, helicoptering in to take tests on the dome after the initial blast - the team was beyond giddy, bringing home all sorts of readouts and talking non stop, telling everyone they saw what was happening. They don't want people to be hurt, property damaged, etc., but from a science perspective it can be extremely exciting.

If there was something of note you can bet there would be a veritable flood of info.

If you go to the shakeout site they give you a link to this.....
www.shakeout.org...

Hoping this is only a drill right ????

Just a thought here but has anyone checked into avalanches in the area? Unfortunately I don't have the knowledge to really read the seismogram but I just thought that I'd point out that avalanches could possibly be a cause.

Northwest Weather and Avalanche Center

15 mins to the drill. Gorgeous Garbage Day morning. Crows are out by the hundreds. You would think that with all the animal die offs, they could rid us of those pests.

Originally posted by gr82m8okdok
15 mins to the drill. Gorgeous Garbage Day morning. Crows are out by the hundreds. You would think that with all the animal die offs, they could rid us of those pests.

Yes, it is a nice mild day here in the Lower Mainland. One minute to the drill and nothing seems out of the ordinary.

Crows are always out by the hundreds in Surrey.

reply to post by bluestreak53


You still there Blue_streak? You're totally right about Surrey. I'm a little disappointed at the lack of sirens or EBS.

reply to post by AeonStorm


You're right, quite often if you see a build up and then decline such as this, you have to consider avalanche. The problem is the size and length of it. For those that are wondering why I got excited, let me repost the screen-shot of it:

(the seismo obviosly stops recording for a period of a few minutes right in the middle...overload?)





Note the time sequence on the bottom. One row equals 10 min. You can see where it started at about 20:43 UTC and didn't die down until about 21:05. That's about 22 mins worth of saturation. I've never even seen an avalanche saturate the seismo before...than consider that this showed up at HELENS, BAKER and HOOD! This is why I got excited. I still don't think I was over-reacting.

You can clearly see the 1.9 quake at about 21:54 UTC....and then before that there is clearly a local quake at about 21:03. This has yet to even be recorded.

I encourage anyone who is interested (again) to go HERE and start exploring a bit. if you start clicking on the 24 hr seismo, you can clearly see whatever this was on all the volcanos but rainier.

Also, look at THIS again. It is IRIS link from Annmarie. You can clearly see there is a lot going on. It seems that it may be starting again as I am typing this.

Comapre it to yesterdays .

HERE is an example given by PNSN of Mount Saint Helens prior to her last small release back in 2004. See any similarities?

Source for helens example-have fun



And to the poster who still thinks my title was sensational...well, okay. I have to say that I always take that into consideration, and intentionally didn't put anything specific in it. 'Something Is Happening At Glacier Peak, Washington NOW (1/25/11)' is sensantional? No bolds, no exclamations, just what I knew. I personally don't feel it is at all sensational, given what I was looking at (the above pic). I am just glad that it stopped and I hope i never see it again.

reply to post by westcoast


I've got to say that if it was me who lived anywhere nearby and saw that I'd have probably been a LOT more dramatic. lol

Let's hope that's the end of it and it doesn't start again.

Most of the time I have no idea about the scientific aspect and generally keep an eye on the 'volcano' threads and appreciate the help/explanations that other members here at ATS give - it all helps.

Originally posted by blue_fish
Wondering why I live in the NW with all these great volcanoes surrounding me??
Oh yeah..it's so beautiful here. I guess I'd rather die in a place that looks live heaven than die in a place that reminds me of hell. LOL

I feel the same exact way. I'm originally from Florida, so Washington State is definitely a heaven for me. I wouldn't trade the hiking or summers (sometimes even our winters!) for anything.

That said, we have a young son so this isn't the scenario you necessarily want to imagine as a mother. Thanks westcoast for the heads up, and bringing Glacier Peak to my attention. I honestly didn't know much about it until you posted an article. Around here, you usually only hear about Baker, Rainier, and Helens.

If Glacier Peak would blow would it be as big as when Mount St.Helens did? Sorry if this is a dumb question but I have no clue and find this interesting.

reply to post by ashleys27


Niot a dumb question at all. It all depends on how big the erruption is. It apparantly has blown several times over the past 15,000 years and the largest of those was five times bigger than helens. Several times the lahars (mud/debris flow) went all the way to the ocean. Both articles I linked have great maps on it.

However, like helens, it could have a much smaller release too. Having said that, let me emphasize there is NO reason so far to believe there is going to be ANY kind of erruption. So far it is an isolated event on the seismos and no one officiall has said anything about it. Although it doesn't look like a glitch there is always that potential, so please don't worry about it. As of yet, there is no legit reason to.


I need to point that I just discovered that the one Iris seismo I linked from AnnMarie, might be from a different location than Glacier. It is hard right now to pin-point and monitor things because some of arrays are not working (or just not allowing access). By messing with the station numbers, I think I may have located that same station on the PNSN map, but it is very confusing, so I may be wrong. It looks as if it may be the B943 station on THIS map. If you go under the 24 hr map (for a few more hours,,,than you have to go to one day) you can clearly see the event that appears to have happened up at glacier. BUT, this means that all those little shakes might not be actually happening up at Glacier, which is GREAT!!! It does however, once again verify that something did go down up there yesterday, through yet another recorder....this time on the peninsula.

I will update that info once I learn more. I'm sure Annmarie and Puterman can verfiy once they can gain access to that info.