New Activity at Mt. Rainier Confirmed to Be Seismic (...or ICE?), Right here on ATS!

reply to post by TrueAmerican


So there has been another quake very near the mountain, South of it. You need to look at this THIS and zoom in on Rainier, vs just the list for Rainier. That one doesn't include the 12+ quakes at it's base, which I think is very significant. The last one was 1.0 at 5.6km deep, near Packwood. I shared some of the info with a relative of mine that owns a place in Packwood (old ranger station), asking if they had noticed anything unusuall. They haven't, but they had NO idea what was going on. Turns out that the relay station, or some sort of hub is located on their property for the white pass and packwood PNSN seismo stations....the ones that showed that really big sig the other day. SO...I now have a great source for first-hand info. If she notices any change in run-off, animal behavior or geologists suddenly swarming her property, I'll know about it!

I noticed that sometime during the night, the signals have changes. RCM is now sitting at 2.0, RS is closer to 3.5 or 4.0 and STAR is going back and forth from the standard 800 to 1.2

They are getting bigger. I think they are getting a bit shorter inbetween too but we'll have to wait and see how the pattern plays out. A couple of systems coming through here in the next few days. Cold weather and snow.

This question is directed to anyone who knows the answer.

Does the bottom of this seismo look harmonic to anyone in the know about harmonic tremors?

This seismo is LO2...pele.ess.washington.edu:16017...

reply to post by radpetey


Hi radpetey. When I logged on this morning, Longmire got my attention, too. After watching for a while, checking wind speeds, and comparing the signal to those of El Hierro from a few weeks back----I think the trace on LO2 is from a snowplow.
Not very dramatic, but that is my best guess.
Here is a link to the Google Map of LO2 location
Let's wait for the more experienced seismograph interpreters to weigh in for a definitive answer.

ETAsk: Anyone else getting "No data available" for STAR in GEE?

reply to post by Olivine


Hey! thanks for replying....I wondered if it was a little wind or maybe it was man made.

2nd.

reply to post by Olivine


if you are talking about that:
old.pnsn.org...

That signature I believe we have identified as some kind of network calibration pulse sent to the station, as it occurs quite often on UW seismos. Here is same thing on the 11th on another station:
old.pnsn.org...

And it's on many more. Same signal, same amplitude and sig, (I have verified this in GEE), so no worries about that sig.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


No, radpetey had been asking about the "background noise", I believe. LO2 past 12 hours Beginning at 1330 UTC (5:30 am pacific local time). It was topping out at 300nm/s in GEE (so tiny).

Believe it or not, I've finally learned how to recognize the calibration pulses, lol. It took me a long while, but I've got it now.

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I've been wondering what those crazy things were. Good find

Ok, so at this point I have written an email to PNSN, asking some particular questions, which encompass the concerns of this thread in summary, plus some other comments. I will be very interested to see the response, if any, as it may shed some light on this subject in some ways not apparent at the moment, but there is a method to my madness, I promise.

I am happy to share that email with friends, but not publicly. U2U me if interested in seeing the email I sent them. I may not respond, unless I know you or trust you, and those are going to be few and far between on here. But if you're a regular, and I recognize your name, no problem...

Nice little rumbler on Mt. Rainier @ 15:05:50 UTC. Check out the Camp Muir Webicorder-past 6 hrs Here it is at Camp Schurman

The "repeaters" are still happening, too. Here is a snapshot.

reply to post by Olivine


Yup...things continue to change. I know we've got some impressive weather moving through (might get around two feet of snow at my house in the next couple of days plus wind tonight. Winter storm warning! ) so I have taken that into account with GEE..but it is quite obvious that several things are occuring:

1. The repeating quake sets (the biggest, most obvious ones showing up on numerous stations) are growing in size. Or I should say continuing to grow in size. For example, on RCS I have now seen several of them creep up into the 4 microns/sec. RCM is now sitting around 2.0 STAR around .80 to 1.0.

2. I am noticing several other mulitplets now. They are much smaller and more eradic, but there is enough of a pattern emerging with them that they are becoming more obvious. If you watch GEE enough or stare at these blasted seismos enough, you will see it.

3. Definitely more micro quakes happening in the past day. We know they are happening, wether they are being listed or not. If you look here: PNSN interactive list You will see two more quakes have been added on Rainier for the past two days. One of them a .5 at 0 depth smack dab on the top. I think these 'real' quakes are taking a long time to be listed because there is so much data to wade through right now with everything else going on (plus it was the weekend). And let's not forget all those little quakes at the base or near it.


We are now into what, day 20? The last one went on for three weeks. This one seems to be gaining momentum if anything.

reply to post by westcoast


Hi Westcoast I wanted to respond to your post earlier, but I had to step away--my eyes were getting bleary from looking at all this activity!

I think your comments are spot on. The "repeaters" are gaining in substance in my eyes. Does it look to you like they have lengthened in duration over the past few days? (ie. instead of a short, 5 second snap, maybe 10-20 long?)

I thought I was beginning to see the pattern in the 2nd set of "repeating" quakes, too, but honestly, the seismographs have gotten so noisy, I've lost it. BTW, are you prepared for the weather? Stay warm!

The last time I checked, the count was up to 8 earthquakes for the Rainier area listed on PNSN. I'm still really curious to see their locations, magnitudes, and depths for the signals @ 15:05:55 & 19:55:58 UTC, 16Jan2012.
Since it is a holiday, I'm being patient, lol. And like you indicated, they have a good bit of data to sift through.

Fremont and STAR have been strangely in GEE. I'm guessing it is the storm. The wind speeds were gusting to 77mph at MUIR the past few hours.

I don't know what to make of this swarm. Did you happen to monitor the previous one?

reply to post by Olivine


So I went back and looked and it turns out that I DID notice the last event in 2010. I thought I remembered seeing something like this before, just not so pronouned. I know it happened towards the end of June 2010 through the first week of July 2010. It's frustrating though because since the PNSN updated thier webiste, the links won't work now. I would have really liked to have seen what it looked like. Here is what I wrote:

posted on 21-5-2010 @ 11:57 PM this post So check out THIS seismo for Rainier. HERE is the link to the main list.

If you go to the main list and click through all the Rainier stations, you will find this on three of them, this repeating....noise. I'm not sure what it is. They look like very sharp spikes...either like very small micro quakes that aren't even registering, or maybe something local like rocks falling.

It appears to start on the 18th and pick up in frequency and strength. I haven't seen this signature there before and it seems to be intensifying so I'm looking for some educated opinions? (or otherwise...)

My second post:

posted on 28-5-2010 @ 09:54 PM this post Sorry, I hadn't checked my own thread for awhile...it's taking all my time just to keep up with oil spill threads!

So first, Puterman did a good job of commenting on the Rainier seismo on the volcano thread...I'm sure you saw it! I'm no sure yet that it is 'normal', but whatever it was, it seems to be quieting down. Having said that, I just went to check on it and there is something signifcant that just showed up....at about 04:40 UTC. HERE

As of right now, I am not finding anything listed anywhere that would account for it. It shows up on three of the Rainier seismos.

Yes I am in the NW corner of the State...the weather continues to be wierd. I had to drain several inches out of our newly filled pool (being optimistic)....it had rained so much in the past 24 hrs!

I did not feel that quake....so no story for me to tell there anyways. BUT, I have been noticing the on-going EQ clouds. Those and the sun halos....I have seen more of these in the past month than I can recall in YEARS. Strange stuff. Also...rainbows in general. My avatar is a pic I took from my own backyard....brightest one I've ever seen and it isn't the only one like that this year. I dunno....there are some things in the air lately. Do you guys know what I mean???

Some interesting new articles also posted in the volcano watch an EQ thread. All we need is more news and studies about how long over due we are!!! Keep your eyes and senses open....

source

Here is what I wrote on the volcano thread:

posted on 22-5-2010 @ 10:17 AM this post Not much going on with this thread lately....hard to keep up with everything!

So ofcourse I keep going back to the volcanic range in my back yard, but I really am a little confused over the latest seismos at Rainier. She continues to be active, with three quakes listed so far just for today. I noticed these wierd signatures a couple of days ago, but figured it was just something wierd going on locally. However, it is intesifying and now there are recordable quakes.

So check out THIS seismo for Rainier. HERE is the link to the main list.

If you go to the main list and click through all the Rainier stations, you will find this on three of them, this repeating....noise. I'm not sure what it is. They look like very sharp spikes...either like very small micro quakes that aren't even registering, or maybe something local like rocks falling.

It appears to start on the 18th and pick up in frequency and strength. I haven't seen this signature there before and it seems to be intensifying so I'm looking for some educated opinions? (or otherwise...

Puterman's response:

Here are some more versions of the recorders on the EHZ or ENZ channel instead of the SHZ channel.

RER.UW..EHZ.2010.142
RCS.UW..EHZ.2010.142
SMNR.UW..ENZ.2010.142

RCS (Camp Schurman) is interesting as this seems to have the most 'noise' and is pretty much at the top of Rainier. Looks like a lot of micro quakes. Sounds like......

1000 Hz version wave file 2.1 Mb (10x speed)
4000 Hz version wave file 2.1 Mb (40x speed)

These are also available in the Yellowtone folder on 4shared in the 'Sound Files' folder

Lots of popping. The sharp pops are local micro quakes I think, since I can't think of anything else that would cause those noises at that elevation.(2877 mt)

source


So anyways....yes, we caught it back then too, but I am thinking that it wasn't as pronounced as it is now.

Oh, and yeah they seem to be a bit longer in duration also. cont..

cont....


I don't know what the heck is going on with FMW and STAR. I would say ice quakes or equipment, but it is showing up on both stations the same. So I dunno. Kinda wierd.

Okay...something changed.

There was a big pause a few hours ago...and now the last three have been 37 minutes apart, but longer.

We have now lost STAR and RCM is a mess. I think the weather is wrecking havoc!

I've got about six inches of snow right now..snowing heaving and a major winter storm expected to hit late tonight. Up to a new foot of snow tonight/tomorrow. I can just imagine what it's doing up there! Oh, and Olivne, yes I am prepard! I LOVE the snow. So do my kids! I usually go out in the front yard and build a huge snow ramp for them (last year a passing snowplow helped me out and I ended up with about an 8 ft hill), but this year due to my hip still healing, I'll just be watching! I went to the store and stocked up before it hit, although I enjoy driving in snow. I grew up in Eastern washington.

Well, we'll see how this goes...will they continue to widen out???

ETA: easiest webi to read

I just posted this on the quake thread for opinions. Not sure what it is. It's showing on all three stations on Rainier. Been seeing it on GEE now for just a bit:

reply to post by westcoast


I had logged in yesterday to post the same thing that you did, wc--something did change!.
Just when I think the repeaters are shrinking their interval back down, it increases again. It seems to be hovering around 27-29 minutes, currently. I am absolutely amazed at the stability in size of those repeating quakes--they hardly waver. Their cause is really confounding me.

Here is a screenshot from STAR and RCS from a few minutes ago. What was the event at 14:00:20UTC? Avalanche?

The top of the mountain must have many feet of new snow by now. And the winds averaged 95 mph overnight, with gusts to 114! I hope a thaw happens in the coming days so we can get station RCM back.

The "squiggles" you posted above--I don't know. I see it on almost all of the stations I normally watch when I zoom in close. I just chalk it up to the earth's background vibrations.

Here is a link that shows a few different signatures on a seismograph. Although it is a rather crude drawing, some folks following this thread can get a better idea of what they are looking at when folks post these graphs on this volcano.

Hey WC! those last seismos seem to be harmonic in nature ......thanks for posting this stuff....I think we might have a problem on our hands.

www.iris.edu...

Hi radpetey. Thanks for the iris link. I went to save the pdf, and realized I already had it saved--now I just need to re-read it, lol.

So, I thought volcanic harmonic tremor would be when a bunch of small earthquakes happen in such close succession, they blend into a smooth tremor? I don't see that on the screenshot, westcoast posted.

This quoted text is from Do volcanoes scream (Listen to the sound files in this link--scary!)

In the ten hours before the first explosion with harmonic tremor, there was a swarm of over 1,600 repeating 'drumbeat' earthquakes. Over time, the earthquakes became increasingly frequent, eventually blending smoothly into tremor.

This is why I've been following the repeating quake interval for the past week or so.

Wow!! What was that?

RCS-old style webicorder
RCS--new webi

I'll upload some pics, brb...Okay, the top image is as it scrolled across, the second is a few minutes later, and zoomed in.



Quite a series of pops.

No, I wasn't really thinking HT, but I don't know what it was/is. I was only zoomed in 1x on GEE...check out the size of the 'waves'. Perhaps it was some MAJOR microseisms??? I know the weather is absolutely crazy up there and maybe I am letting it get the best of me, but darnit! I have never seen sigs like that and the one I am about to post. My gut tells me to watch closely.......something is going on:

So the following is still on the screen in GEE. There was a large burst followed by these...looks very much like the above linked papers example of 'sonic bursts':





You can see it here on IRIS: IRIS - RCS


On the PNSN WEBI

And the new webi


I don't know what is going on here. I am going to write to PNSN again.