Mt. St. Helens: 2 earthquakes/minute

[Dr Mordrid]

Soundling like she'll blow her top;

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040927/D85C9RN80.html

Dr. Mordrid

[KvHagedorn]

Looks like the place not to be..

[The PIT]

Interesting I'll keep an eye on that. Early results from the gas tests indicate no magmatic input which suggests it could water seeping down within the dome.

[Brian Ellis]

The one that scares me is Mt Rainier. Although currently fairly dormant, if it blows up like Mt St Helens did in 1980 (?), it could make parts of Seattle/Tacoma and surrounding towns look like a nuclear test site I have a friend who lives in a village roughly half way between Reston (where he works for a company making aircraft) and the Mt. He tells me he occasionally feels very small tremors but he is fully aware that if the worst happens, he will not have a chance.

In addition, there is an adduction fault in Puget Sound, and a big'un is not impossible, there, either, according to seismologists.

I admit that Seattle is my favourite big US city, if only it did not rain so much! I'm told that if you can see across the Sound, it's going to rain; if you can't, it's raining already.

[SitFlyer]

A Mt Rainier eruption would be tragic but nothing compared to an eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera

[Brian Ellis]

If Yellowstone did blow, there is no certainty that it would be anything like what happened 600-odd kiloyears ago. It might just be a small fizzle (comparatively speaking) or it might be worse!

However, the chances of it happening in my lifetime are negligible, unless Toutatis lands there tomorrow! Now, THAT would be spectacular!

[Dr Mordrid]

My wifes uncle lives in Reston.

Yellowstone's about 60k years overdue for its eruption (600k year intervals average). The infrared imaging done over the site aren't encouraging since the caldera is about 30x50 miles in size

Dr. Mordrid

[Jon P. Inghram]

Activity looks to have really picked up in the last few hours, including what might be volcanic tremor:

Seismographs on the side of the mountain, and in the crater.

[Lizzard[MPE]]

earthquakes scare me

[Jon P. Inghram]

Never felt one (or at the very least, I never noticed one) here in Kansas.

Great, the entire west coast is fogged in, so much for the web cam:

[TnT]

Geez, I'll have to keep an eye on this. My family arrived to Oregon about the same time Mt. St. Helens blew. I don't really want to walk around with ash everywhere.

[Mehen]

Never been in any natural disaster before, although I have ridden in a Hyundai... that's pretty close

[gt40]

LOL, I remember calling those first Hyundai's 'how-u-wanna-die's',
with the brake springs that would let go and lock up a rear wheel while driving.

[Brian Ellis]

Originally posted by |Mehen|
Never been in any natural disaster before, although I have ridden in a Hyundai... that's pretty close

I thought Manitoba was one big natural disaster, especially in winter

We had a moderately big temblor a coupla years or so ago, Richter 5.6. Casualties were two persons with broken legs caused by jumping off balconies, no deaths, even though the epicentre was just a stone's throw from the second biggest city. (Building regs are strong with quake-proofing rules). Considerable building damage but no collapsing. We live about 60 km from the epicentre and we felt as if we were walking on jelly for 5 secs. Not even a crack in the plaster chez nous.

At the moment, seismologists forecast no really big'uns (>7 Richter) here for at least 100 years, as the Africa/Anatolian plate adduction is currently fairly relaxed. Some of the past ones have been estimated at >8 Richter, judging from damage caused.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Interesting... the glacier that has formed around the dome in the crater has new cracks that have formed in the last few days: the image above was taken north of the crater looking down over the dome on the 26th, the second from the south on the actual crater looking down onto the glacier on the 29th (I just rotated and cropped 'em so they show the same features.) Also the webcam shows something blowing around around the crater/mountain, although I bet it's just dust from wind and/or rockfalls caused by the earthquakes.