official reports ...
New "official reports" being broadcast on KEX in Portland suggest we should not be concerned about Mt. St. Helens because "the new lava dome is so huge" that it causes magma rising underneath the mountain to be blocked and to "flatten out" - all of which I take as "utterly official nonsense" ...
Huh ?
Every day online I can view a real time changing image of St. Helens at:
http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/msh/
... so I am well aware the new lava dome inside the crater does not even amount to 1/20th of the material that was dislodged and blown or pushed away by the 1980 eruption.
Why, then, would anyone suppose the new lava dome is sufficient to "block" new magma, or that it makes an eruption less likely ?
Part of my daily routine also is monitoring earthquakes at:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/
... so I am aware of significant seismic events not only at St. Helens but around the world - in fact I receive e-mail notification of any event over 5.0
My watching earthquake reports is not going to prevent them, but it does give me opportunity to understand better when earthquakes are more likely to occur.
Until a few years ago, scientists still generally insisted there was "no relation" when large earthquakes occurred at different places in a region within a short time period.
One of the motivators for those in official reporting positions seems to be avoiding anything likely to panic the public, and I think that is a good thing ...
... but not to the point of being dishonest or spreading false information.
The simple fact of the matter is that any earthquake occurring on planet earth is related in some way to any other earthquake on planet earth.
For years I noticed when there was a large earthquake maybe in Iran or Pakistan or China, there was soon a large earthquake somewhere on the other side of the world, nearer where I live.
Earth's interior is composed of liquids and solids, and we know shock waves travel through both states of matter. A shockwave from a major earthquake anywhere in the world can easily set off an earthquake anywhere else in the world.
The interior of the earth is under stress, and portions of it are in constant motion. Sometimes an event occurs only because the stress is too great, while at other times stress is relieved because the area is "bumped" by a shockwave from another event.
Many people are not aware that in more active areas, like the U.S. West Coast, earthquakes are constant. There are numerous earthquakes in Cafilornia or Alaska every hour, though most of them are so small no one feels them. Under active volcanoes, movement of magma and of rock falling into magma cause seismic needles to sway dozens or even hundreds of times each day, but almost all of the "quakes" are less than 1.0 and no one would know about them except for instrumentation.
Such details are simple knowledge - part of the way things work on this planet, and no cause for alarm. What does cause my personal alarms to go off is when "officials" tell me not to be concerned ...
Huh ?
Every day online I can view a real time changing image of St. Helens at:
http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/msh/
... so I am well aware the new lava dome inside the crater does not even amount to 1/20th of the material that was dislodged and blown or pushed away by the 1980 eruption.
Why, then, would anyone suppose the new lava dome is sufficient to "block" new magma, or that it makes an eruption less likely ?
Part of my daily routine also is monitoring earthquakes at:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/
... so I am aware of significant seismic events not only at St. Helens but around the world - in fact I receive e-mail notification of any event over 5.0
My watching earthquake reports is not going to prevent them, but it does give me opportunity to understand better when earthquakes are more likely to occur.
Until a few years ago, scientists still generally insisted there was "no relation" when large earthquakes occurred at different places in a region within a short time period.
One of the motivators for those in official reporting positions seems to be avoiding anything likely to panic the public, and I think that is a good thing ...
... but not to the point of being dishonest or spreading false information.
The simple fact of the matter is that any earthquake occurring on planet earth is related in some way to any other earthquake on planet earth.
For years I noticed when there was a large earthquake maybe in Iran or Pakistan or China, there was soon a large earthquake somewhere on the other side of the world, nearer where I live.
Earth's interior is composed of liquids and solids, and we know shock waves travel through both states of matter. A shockwave from a major earthquake anywhere in the world can easily set off an earthquake anywhere else in the world.
The interior of the earth is under stress, and portions of it are in constant motion. Sometimes an event occurs only because the stress is too great, while at other times stress is relieved because the area is "bumped" by a shockwave from another event.
Many people are not aware that in more active areas, like the U.S. West Coast, earthquakes are constant. There are numerous earthquakes in Cafilornia or Alaska every hour, though most of them are so small no one feels them. Under active volcanoes, movement of magma and of rock falling into magma cause seismic needles to sway dozens or even hundreds of times each day, but almost all of the "quakes" are less than 1.0 and no one would know about them except for instrumentation.
Such details are simple knowledge - part of the way things work on this planet, and no cause for alarm. What does cause my personal alarms to go off is when "officials" tell me not to be concerned ...
posted by JamesB at 11:11 PM
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