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

reply to post by elouina


I don't think so. It means those observing will pay a little closer attention for a bit, but until there are other signs of eruption, than it isn't time yet to be too concerned. (you are correct that they would be a sign, or indicator, but not the ONLY one...just the first)

reply to post by westcoast


So it just warrants closer observation if the quakes are on the crater - what if it continues in the same location for a period of time? In addition to the quakes in the center of the crater what else would be an indication of an eruption?

reply to post by crazydaisy


Ok, you got me there. All those quakes located in what they are calling the Helens seismic zone are definately worth watching. Since the last big quake there was caused (they believe) by the movement of magma, there is always the chance these are heralding the same type of activity now. So far as I know though, there have not been any harmonic tremors, which is the unique signal you get when there is magma moving around. Same goes for the crater. That would definately be a BIG sympton but it doesn't always mean an eruption. They also check for other signs at and near the crater, such as heat, gas emission, steam, melt off. If Harmonic tremors DO occur,you would typically see them increase in both magnetude and occurance until the eruption. THEN....the eruption can somtime just be steam....or ash...or the real deal.

So when I see that big cluster in the seismic zone and now these shallow quakes right in the crater, I am now watching the seismos to see if any HT start.....but again, there should be lots of signs building up to it. at least there typically is with Helens.

reply to post by westcoast


Thanks for the info - I better understand the connection now, what we don't want to see now would be harmonic tremors. .

Have a look at this pretty seismo.



Now can someone tell me if they can see the waves in it?

Studebaker Ridge Seismo, Mt St Helens

reply to post by zenius

Interesting, that. Good to be able to see ground motion displayed that way. Bookmarked the page as it's one I didn't already have in my ever-growing lists of useful sites.

And yes, it looks a bit wavy. We'd need to know what the amplitude is. It could be in fractions of millimetres. In any case, they're quite long-period looking.

By the way folks, if you've been checking the Pacifc Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) webicorders and you're wondering about the rather large and longish trace that showed up on most of them just before 11:10 UTC today, don't be too concerned, as it's not a local quake. It's from a magnitude 6.4 quake south of the Fiji Islands that occurred at 10:57:51 UTC. According to the theoretical P-Wave travel times map for this quake, they'd take about 12 minutes minutes to reach the PNW and the quake was certainly strong enough to be recorded by seismos there. Adding 12 minutes onto 10:57:51 gives us 11:09:51, which is near as dammit to the time it shows up on the PNSN webicorders.

Webi SHW (St Helens - West) shows a nice trace for this quake. How well the individual webis show it depends on their settings, but this one (at 100 microvolts) is a fair example for any who are new to this. It's what is commonly called a "teleseismic" trace. While these larger quakes can be terrible for people who live near them, the teleseismic records of them are no big deal. We expect to see these traces! In fact, they are helpful in confirming that equipment is working properly, especially when the seismo is otherwise so "quiet" that we might wonder if it is actually set up properly!

I mention all this because we can't assume that everyone on here knows these things and they're useful things to know. Also, because we sometimes get new threads popping up -- with lots of UPPER CASE and exclamation marks!!!! -- to tell us of a sudden, "global seismic event" that has shown up on webicorders all over the world (and that invariably spells some kind of widespread gloom and doom), it's worth knowing that such posters are usually either posting out of ignorance, or else they do know the real story but they're just scaremongering and gathering flags and stars from those who don't know.

These so-called "global" events are nearly always due to larger quakes in one place that are "felt" (by seismo equipment) over much of the world, except for the "shadow zone" areas. Even mag six events are quite enough to do this and as they happen on average a few times every week, we get quite a lot of these "global seismic events".

About the only exceptions to the above proviso are the true global events, where the whole planet "rings like a bell" (vibrates) following a massive quake. Thankfully, such huge quakes are rare: they generally need to be at least a mid to high-range magnitude 8 to do this. Following the disastrous 2004 Asia quake, with a magnitude variously given at between 9.1 and 9.3, the whole planet vibrated as much as 1 cm. That may not sound like much, but when you consider the energy required to do that it's really quite massive.

Best regards,

Mike

You know what, it has been such a long day and I am so over-saturated with quake stuff after arkansas and NZ that I hate to even post this,,,,but I have to. *sigh*

I do not like the way these seismos look right now at all. Yes, we are starting to get some weather and Cedar flats is known to be noisy,BUT I do NOT think what I am seeing is noise.

Here is the direct LINK to the stations. (If I post the seismo it will lose its link after the time runs out)


Check out Raininer and Helens. Specificially Cedar flats and St. Andrews.

Edit to add picture of helens seismo. (please oh please someone tell me that is wind)





and this:




Above is station CDF HERE

St. Helens Cedar Flats

Dang...





LINK


Again...there is a storm system moving in, but that sure doesn't look much like wind to me. As more come in, I can definately see a whole bunch of quakes.

Mt St Helens weather:

Overnight: Snow showers. Low around 19. Breezy, with a west wind around 29 mph, with gusts as high as 37 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible. Tuesday: Snow showers. High near 23. Wind chill values as low as -1. Windy, with a west wind between 22 and 30 mph, with gusts as high as 39 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 7 inches possible. Tuesday Night: Snow showers. Low around 13. Wind chill values as low as -6. West wind between 14 and 18 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of 6 to 10 inches possible. Wednesday: Snow. High near 16. Wind chill values as low as -9. Breezy, with a west wind between 22 and 24 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 11 to 17 inches possible. Wednesday Night: Snow. Low around 13. West wind between 14 and 21 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 7 to 11 inches possible.

source

b204 doesn't look that bad and it's in the same area. As the winds are westerlies, I would have thought b204 would be the bumpier. There seems to be a definite quake on it at aroun 7:15utc which isn't pronounced on JUN b204

Not liking Rainier either. Also had a dejavu yesterday and St Helens was a part of it. Not a nice dejavu. Will be watching it.

reply to post by westcoast

Hi Westcoast,

I'm similarly feeling pretty shattered right now (for several reasons, including NZ) but I'll respond as levelly as I can.

My own feeling is that is they were actual seismic events showing on the Cedar Flats webi then they ought to show to a fair degree on the others close to it, and frankly I can't see much that matches up. So, I'd say that most of the more active-looking traces are probably wind. There is some minor activity going on there but the big traces are very similar to those we saw some days back (at Cedar Flats), which a member demonstrated as occurring at the time there were strong winds in that area. And again, most of the other webis showed nowhere near that level of large traces.

I'll keep an eye on these webis during the day and so will others. It must be very late where you are now. We in more distant time zones can watch things while you and your fellow PNW members get some rest.

Okay?

Best regards,

Mike

EDIT: just posted and seen Zenius' post that must have appeared while I was still writing. Many thanks for that.

EDIT 2: Now read Zenius' post in detail. Have to say that I still feel that most of what shows on CDF is wind; VALT (St Helens crater BB) shows almost nothing at that time and it's not far away. If there were actual larger events that traced on CDF they'd surely also trace on VALT and they don't.

Have to admit that I also had a bad premonition on Sunday afternoon, accompanying an epileptic episode I had. (These episodes are quite rare for me.) As I posted on another thread here a couple of years back, sometimes my worst "feelings" (meaning epileptic or quasi-epileptic in nature) occur just before a bad quake. The worst I ever had was Christmas, 2004. The feeling lifted some hours before the Asian quake/tsunami. I made a new thread about what I went through on Sunday Feb 20 (it's in my signature) and while I didn't mention the premonitory aspect, it's at least documented that I had a very bad episode, the worst in years -- and it hit me only about 36 hours before the deadly NZ quake. So I'm wondering if there is a geomagnetic effect that I'm picking up on pre-quake.

This is relevant to the thread though so bear with me. Please.

Right now I just feel lousy. Yesterday I was recovering and felt more-or-less okay, but after going to bed last night I couldn't sleep and just tossed and turned and I finally got up at about 12:50 am today (my time = UTC +1). Felt very bad and confused. It turns out that the quake hit in NZ at pretty much that moment. I didn't even know about it till I finally woke this morning and logged on to internet.

Don't know why I'm putting this here except to say that right now I still feel awful and can't point to any one thing, but yes, I suspect that something else is coming up. No use as a prediction as I can't say where, but honestly I get no alarm bells from St Helens or Rainier. Please take that for what you will. I hope the mods will allow this edit to stay. I've tried to keep it as relevant as I can.

Mike

Just came to me that it might be worth watching the near off-coast regions of the PNW, especially west of Eureka, Portland and also around Vancouver Island (southern part). Could be some quake activity there very shortly.

Mike

reply to post by JustMike


Have you looked at this thread?

I had a headache Sunday night which eased and is back tonight. Not that I'm saying that means anything, but I often get them before a big quake. So I believe you JustMike.

I too have a bad feeling that NZ is not the end of it. Really hope I'm wrong.

reply to post by zenius

Hello Zenius,

no, I haven't seen that thread before. I will bookmark it and read it later. But at a guess I have at least a hundred posts** on the "Experment in Alternative Methods of Earthquake Prediction" thread and have just posted a more detailed prediction on that thread relating to the above post. You can find it here.

I take no pleasure in posting such predictions because when they're right it can mean that people have suffered, but the only way we'll make any progress in trying to predict these events is by making our statements public prior to the event.

Mike
EDIT: I just checked and I have 333 posts on that thread (16 pages + 13 posts), which is a lot more than I'd realized.

Thank you Zenius and Justmike for the comments....I wish I could take more time to answer but I have to go teach a class. I will spend more time on this when I get back.

Justmike, I hope you are feeling better, I am sorry you are having to go through this. You are most likely right about helens...whatever that was has calmed down. I am still not so sure it was wind, given that it has eased up. I believe the weather there is worse not better right now. Either way, my bigger concern is for the over-all picture. I will pay close attention to your thoughts off the coast...

And I agree guys. I have had the same feelings and my 'distant' quake dog was acting wierd before the NZ quake and still is...meaning that there is probably something bigger, closer that hasn't happened yet.

Take care all-back in a few hours

reply to post by JustMike


Looks like an interesting thread. I'll try to find some time to have a read. Thanks for the link.

St Helens & Rainier look much the same this morning. But the bumps aren't across the board so thinking it's still weather. I really wish there was a way that seismos were protected from weather events.

Still have headache this morning and feel like my tummy is doing somersaults. I'd trust your little dog and your instincts, Westcoast. Mike, hope you're feeling better today.

reply to post by zenius


I hope you are right. I have been watching these things for a long time now though and I usually just pass over Cedar flats because of all the noise it'll have. But these sigs are different. I swear there are spikes in there....I am still not convinced it is weather. If you go here:LINK

and zoom in on helens (down near the oregon border)

Now...to the NW of the moutain there are three stations located in the 'seismic zone' where the last swarm was. There are numerous stations on the mountain itself. Now look to the SE...see the three on the ridge? Take a look at those.



Edit to add: Look at GPW....almost looks like steam explosions. (glacier peak)

Those blue webis look so much more scarey than the colored ones. I picked out a dozen or so random stations across Washington State and they all look weather affected. There looks to be a few peaks here and there but not consistent with other webis. Hopefully the weather will calm down and we'll be able to get a clearer picture.

Okay.....looking at cedar flats again, and I have NEVER seen wind look like that.

Calling Puterman....

SEISMO

Taken from:

HERE

Here is another source that also shows action...it will only link for a few hours though:

Link

Taken from: HERE


Okay...Puterman assures me the same as zenuis that there is nothing to worry about. I will wait for the weather to calm down before getting excited.

About 6:51 UTC on pnsn on HSR looks local. Doesn't quite fit with the Northern Cali 2.8
but it's not on JUN. CDF looks like it might be calming down.

Westcoast, I know you're concerned and your intuition is good. Trust yourself and your dog. Prepare as best you can and plan an evacuation route. Until Puterman puts our minds at ease, it's best to take the safest course of action.
Is there another heli we can compare that isn't pnsn? Will go look now.

Studebaker ridge is all I can find atm. A couple of spikes, but no clearer pic.