Something Stirring at Mount Saint Helens - 2/14/1011

Originally posted by SkipperJohn
Westcoast just a fyi, drudgereport.com picked this up as well. here is the link they give
Link and just how far are you from Mt. St. Helen?

Good article, thanks for the link!

I find this funny:

Emergency dispatchers from Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties all got calls reporting the quake, but no reports of any damage

Several residents of the area told KGW they felt the quake, including as a far south as the Sunnyside area of Clackamas

Debby Southworth told KGW that "I just felt a shift and my entire house shook. The windchimes on my front porch chimed too

and then.....

A spokesman at the seismology lab at the University Washington, Bill Steele, said the quakes were caused by faults and not volcanic activity.

He added that they were about two miles deep, just northwest of the volcano and no one had reported that they felt the earthquakes.

Edit to answer the question!! I live about 100 miles North of Helens. If you look at my sig line, I have a short story about experiencing the major eruption as a child in Yakima, Wa. If there is an eruption, it tends to travel East from the volcano. I most likley would have nothing to worry about. However, if Rainier, Glacier peak or Baker went...I would be totally screwed.

reply to post by leaualorin
Hey no biggie man... You did awesome considering that you are in Romania. There are kids in the US that can't even identitfy California on a map, so I would say you are well ahead of the curve on that subject.

I apoligize if in any way I came off as rude, that was not my intentions at all. And please don't be bashful about posting just because of a previous error. We are all here to learn from each other.

reply to post by westcoast


According to This Map, there is no fault in the area of the quake?

Originally posted by JustMike
reply to post by westcoast

 

Yes, a 4.3 is significant in that area: they're far from common! And as you say, it doesn't have to mean anything major is imminent but all the same it's good to have it logged.

Most interesting that your dog was showing her signs of nervousness yesterday (and also good that you logged that in the other thread at the time). It helps to lend credence to the hypothesis that some animals are very sensitive to such things.

Okay I'm off to dinner (it's nearly 9 pm here). Be back later...

Mike

EDIT: won't surprise me if they downgrade that 2.3 a point or two after seismologists review it.

edit on 14/2/11 by JustMike because: I added an edit!

It IS significant seeing the eruption in 1980 was triggered by a 5.1 earthquake!
This 4.3 knocked out their live cams today!

Hunker down folks because we're in for a real strange year!!

reply to post by Anmarie96


I know, I'm not sure what faults they are talking about.


Go HERE and plot the quakes by depth. It gives a pretty good picture. Our whole region has been acting up, and you can see the line along the mountains. That's just the past two weeks. The two weeks prior there were even more.

reply to post by westcoast


I just checked the to see last Fridays Cascade Range Current Update as I was slacking and didn't get a chance to look at until now. I find it very interesting.

CASCADES VOLCANO OBSERVATORY WEEKLY UPDATE
Recent Observations: Seismometers recorded a 2-minute-long swarm of small (M < 0), shallow earthquakes at Mount Rainier on Thursday February 10, beginning at 5:52 am. At Mount Hood, seismometers recorded a small swarm of earthquakes on Friday, February 11, beginning at 5:01 am. Preliminary magnitude of the largest earthquake at Mount Hood was M 1.7, and the earthquakes were located 4 miles east of Government Camp at depths of 3-5 miles in an area that commonly experiences earthquakes. Elsewhere along the Cascade Range, monitoring systems show that activity at volcanoes during the past week was at background levels.

Source

is" fault related" not an standard reply. ???
and I have read somewere that mnt's rainier/hood and hellens are part of the same magma system there?

reply to post by Anmarie96


Yes...hence my comment about my concern for the rest of those giants, vs helens.

I tend to use Helens as a thermometer. When I see something there, I look to the others. It is my greatest fear. This is why I say don't worry so much about helens....the potential for a big erruption is there, but loss of life/damage is not that great compared to the others.

When I see a quake that big, it makes me nervous. So far though, so good.

reply to post by westcoast

Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.

Yes, the big picture matters so much here. To explain for members who might have just happened on this thread, while we (various ATS members) are understandably keeping an eye on Mt St Helen's right now, we still watch other things going on in the region and have been doing so for quite a while. Years, in some cases. We're not interested in being alarmist, we are much more concerned with doing our best to stay informed and (where we are able) document and pass on what we observe.

Also, if plainly wrong or seriously misleading information is being given out somewhere we have no qualms about posting rebuttals to it. For example, when uninformed people say that such-and-such a fault line is "overdue" for a quake (based purely on averaging the times between previous known events), you're likely to see us make the point that quakes are not babies or buses and they don't arrive to some preset schedule, so saying one is "overdue" is completely misleading. Ditto for volcanoes.

Anyways I'll get down off my soapbox now and get back to the thread...

Okay, I don't know if I should even mention this, but here goes...
I have a chicken inside that we are raising from an egg. (she needs to go out)

She just started going crazy. I have NEVER heard her cluck like this....so, just in case.

reply to post by westcoast

Yeah I had a chuckle over that report as well. I like the way the journalist set it up. Start by giving details from various people who felt the quake then have a comment from an expert who says that no-one reported feeling it. What he should have said is that no-one reported it to his organization. I expect that most people don't even know they can file "quake felt" reports. They call the local news media if they contact anyone outside of family and friends.

And as Anmarie pointed out, there are no charted faults that close to Mt St Helen's. Not on the USGS maps, anyway -- which is where you'd expect them to be recorded if they exist. So, if they exist, we need to find documentation to back up what this expert says about them. If none can be found then we can reasonably suspect that he's spouting a line. Don't like it when they do that but we've seen such obfuscation before.

All the same, even if the expert is just giving us a standard line, that doesn't have to mean there's any sinister cover-up. It could be just what they're told to say, like teaching a parrot to say "Polly wants a cracker." You can fill Polly to the back of its beak with crackers and it'll still say the same thing...

Mike

reply to post by westcoast


i wouldnt be surprised if she blew again....

( ah your year of this needs to be fixed)

lmao

Ya im defin gonna be watching this all day tomorrow when that solar storm is due to hit earth, this defin should apply a little more pressure to all active volcanoes and faults, defin need to maybe keep an eye on yellowstone as well, seems all is quiet up there for the moment

www.seis.utah.edu...

reply to post by alysha.angel


Oh wow....I'll see if it's too late. Now that is funny!!

JustMike...you are better than you think. The second quake WAS bigger than the other subsequent. They upgraded it to a 2.8 and are adding the smaller ones too:

MAP 2.3 2011/02/14 20:21:42 46.278 -122.219 5.2 9 km ( 6 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
MAP 2.3 2011/02/14 19:35:08 46.279 -122.217 4.8 9 km ( 6 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
MAP 1.3 2011/02/14 18:54:06 46.285 -122.213 6.0 10 km ( 6 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
MAP 1.2 2011/02/14 18:47:55 46.279 -122.208 4.6 9 km ( 6 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
MAP 2.8 2011/02/14 18:37:45 46.280 -122.209 4.5 9 km ( 6 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA
MAP 4.3 2011/02/14 18:35:25 46.282 -122.212 5.5 9 km ( 6 mi) NNW of Mount St. Helens Volcano, WA

reply to post by darrman


I checked around. No definite time, just 2-3 days out from when the flare erupts per www.solarcycle24.com...

Originally posted by OatDelphi
reply to post by leaualorin

 

Hey no biggie man... You did awesome considering that you are in Romania. There are kids in the US that can't even identitfy California on a map, so I would say you are well ahead of the curve on that subject.

I apoligize if in any way I came off as rude, that was not my intentions at all. And please don't be bashful about posting just because of a previous error. We are all here to learn from each other.

Excellent point Oat, I know I certainly appreciate everyone on here whom I can learn from and this is exactly one of those times and subjects. leaualorin, you keep posting; like Oat said we are all here to learn from each other!

I'm S&F this if for nothing more than the sheer mass knowledge available from my fellow ATS'ers. I have a limited knowledge of things volcanic and tectonic, so I appreciate being able to learn from those more well versed in these subjects.

I don't consider this discussion fear-mongering in any way.

Enlightening and very informative? Oh heck yeah!

Edit: Thanks OP

Originally posted by this_is_who_we_are
reply to post by darrman

 

I checked around. No definite time, just 2-3 days out from when the flare erupts per www.solarcycle24.com...

compare this map with big eq's ...time may fit...
www.swpc.noaa.gov...

Well guys, life beckons and I HAVE to go out for a few hours. Hopefully things will continue to quiet down (looking around for some wood to knock on)

Please all, update as necessary!!!!

Thanks-

reply to post by westcoast


That seems pretty significant to me. I am a USGS regular and I haven't seen anything that big at this location in recent memory. S&F for you, and I do believe it's a real good idea for this baby to have her own thread. Thanks

reply to post by westcoast


No sound folks, sorry. The signal is very odd. Very very squeaky clean but with a massive spike which means I can't up the volume any. There really is nothing worth listening to.

On second thoughts. Here it is so don't expect too much.

dl.dropbox.com...