What's going on Three Sisters Volcano

What appears to be Harmonic Tremor at Three Sisters Volcano in Oregon

For all of you living near, around or planning a trip to the area, be aware and informed. Three Sisters volcano in Oregon has been having what appears to be Harmonic Tremor since August 19, 2010. Here and Here are the seismo's for the area. Here is the Home page for CVO who monitor's the volcano. I have been watching this area for many years including Mount Saint Helens. The Seismo's at Three Sisters appears identical to what I witness to the instruments when Helens blew. Intrusion of Magma into the South Sister was noticed in 2001 and stopped in 2007. This is a dangerous Volcano and all of you need to keep abreast of the current situation.. Let us hope this current event soon subsides. In the meantime I gather as much information for you. Please help me in keeping everyone up to date and infomred.

Edit to fix links


[edit on 23-8-2010 by Anmarie96]

reply to post by Anmarie96
Wow,..I have been somewhat keeping up with your posts on this,.
how long has this tremor been doing this?

Thanks very much for the info - I lived in Oregon for 12 years and familiar with Three Sisters - I have friends there. We do need to keep on top of this one! S @ F

reply to post by crazydaisy
Are you anywhere near there now.
maybe take a drive there to inspect things?

I'm about 3.5 hours away from them but I don't think you would be able to tell anything if you went there. If you could then this would be more in the paper because they have towns over by the mountains.

reply to post by Anmarie96


Hi Anmarie96! S & F for focusing in on this!

I am not too familiar with that region at all, does this recent tremor activity on the map I have linked (loads slowly, sorry) relate to what you are talking about? Or is this something different?

Thank you in advance!

www.pnsn.org...

[edit on 23-8-2010 by lasertaglover]

Here is a 2004 article posted by my friend Westcoast on the Washington Thread which explains some of what is going on in the area.

Originally posted by whoshotJR
I'm about 3.5 hours away from them but I don't think you would be able to tell anything if you went there. If you could then this would be more in the paper because they have towns over by the mountains.

I was out in ST Helen's a few years ago when it was pushing up the lava dome and I could feel vibrations from the observation area.
I understand that was a bit different , but is just a thought

You are reading the webicorders wrong. The "activity" is obviously just a constant glitch in the instrument. There is NO activity going on in the 3 sisters area. Trust me, I live here and if there was anything going on that news would be huge.

The device went in error, it appears, on 8/19 and has been screwed up ever since: 8/19 it breaks

reply to post by harrytuttle


I am not so sure on that. I could see if we had instrument failure on one of the instruments, not both at the same time. I will have to look into this more, but in the meantime, just be aware.

Instrument reliability is why I suggest that someone go up there.
If I were in the area I would love to do the hike myself.

reply to post by harrytuttle


It could also be that these are so deep that you can't feel anything at the surface. Unless the tremors are shallower or much more intense it will probably just show on the web recorders.

[edit on 23-8-2010 by LadySkadi]

reply to post by whoshotJR

Nah, I'm not saying we would/should feel it, I'm saying that the Central Oregon community is super interwoven. Information like Harmonic Tremors occurring, even if the MSM kept quiet, would spread like wild fire through the community, especially the one I work in. Can't keep information like that a secret, if it were really occurring.

My family is in Shasta Lake region... So posted to make sure I can find this thread again, gives me a sad feeling , lost feeling to think they are in harms way. I guess if it blows they could dash to the coast, steal a boat or get on one, and head west out to the ocean, the only chance they would have to escape the ash.

Thanks Ladyskadi (edit) to tell you so...

[edit on 23-8-2010 by antar]

[edit on 23-8-2010 by LadySkadi]

Thank you for this thread and for the links and info.

I was in the Bend area over the weekend, did not notice anything unusual. The weather was sunny and clear with almost no wind.

I am not so sure that the new activity, if that is what it is, would be reported, the media in the Pacific Northwest does not seem to cover earthquakes anymore, or really anything to do with changes in the Earth.

Earlier this year, there were some earthquakes (3 or 4 magnitudes) happening off of the Oregon coast, not only was it never reported, people were swimming and boating in the area directly over the earthquakes. There were several people that had to be rescued by the Coast Guard, saw it on the news, can not find any articles to cite.

Around the same time, there were stories about a couple of dead whales washing up in the same area.

Source

The earthquakes may have been mentioned in a newspaper after the fact, but they were not reported on our local weather channel, or on the local news.

Also, when the bulge first appeared at Sisters, the articles in the Oregonian newspaper kept stating that they had no idea what it could be. It was a couple of months before I read that it was rising magma causing the mountain to bulge, if something big had been happening, the way people would have found out was when they felt or saw something. Just my opinion.

Thanks, AnnMarie, for starting this thread. As you know, I have been following this in conjunction with the deep tremors happening right now, but didn't have the time to start a new thread.

I was thinking equipment glitch also, until I found the exact same activity on both seismos up there. THEN, I loaded up GEE. Both of those stations are live streaming some serious stuff. If you zoom in close enough, you can widen out that mess enough to see it sitting right around the 4-5 MHZ range, which is right on for harmonic tremor. For those of you that are not familiar with this stuff, harmonic tremor is what you see with magma moving around.

NOW...I have been wondering why USGS or PNSN would not be talking about this. Perhaps it is because while this is news, it is still not enough for an alert. Until they start seeing other indicators of a pending ERRUPTION, they will most likely not say anyting urgent about it. Geologists are EXTREMELY reluctant to raise the red flag. So far there haven't been any quakes that would indicate a pending erruption and the HT (if that is what it is) has stayed pretty steady.

HERE is the map showing the most recent tremor acitivty. Almost 700 epicenters in less than 48 hours. Now THAT is some serious humming going on down there. Notice the locations? That little cluster in Oregon is new over the past two days.

Now look HERE for a great interactive quake map. See the blue circle near the middle of Oregon? Getting pretty close to the sisters. Click on the volcano option and the two red circles in the middle of oregon are the two siesmos for the sisters. You can go directly to them and see it all for yourself.

I will be watching closely.

Edit to add my link to What might really be happening in Washington State one more time. There is a TON of info in the thread regarding my theory that ties into all of this with supporting articles...and a bunch of links for the current deep tremor that has been on-going for almost two weeks. I just don't have time right now to put it here!

[edit on 23-8-2010 by westcoast]

reply to post by Lil Drummerboy


No - I live in Indiana now but if tremors continue I may call my friend and see if he can check things out.

reply to post by crazydaisy
It is beautiful out there,
I would like to be out that way right now,
I often say I picked the wrong career path.
Seismic geology is where I should have gone, volcanoes are an awesome energy to.