Posted on 05/12/2006 9:26:50 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SEATTLE - The sheer rock fin emerging in Mount St. Helens' crater lost about a third of its northern face recently, but because lava keeps pushing to the surface, the height remained the same Thursday — around 330 feet.
A burst of seismic activity at the mountain Sunday night likely corresponded to the collapse. "Certainly a big piece fell off — something like 65,000 cubic yards," said geologist Dan Dzurisin at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash., about 50 miles from the mountain and 150 miles south of Seattle.
Bad weather had iced over scientists' cameras on the rim of the volcano, so the rockfall wasn't recorded on film, he said.
Now the fin is about the same height as it was before, but rock that was previously in the middle is now at the top.
"At that height, it becomes unstable and ... begins to collapse under gravity," he said. Boulders and finer rubble from the crumbling top surround the base of the fin.
This is the seventh rock feature formed by lava in the crater since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004.
The crater was formed by the southwest Washington volcano's deadly May 18, 1980, eruption that killed 57 people and blasted about 1,300 feet off the then-9,677-foot peak.
The most recent lava feature started growing in mid-October, Dzurisin said.
The emerging rock takes different shapes, depending on what it meets at the surface.
At the moment it's like toothpaste coming out of a tube. "As it emerges it's having to deal with its own debris, so we're seeing steeper-sided features looking more like spines," the geologist said.
The pace of the lava extrusion has slowed since October 2004, he added. For the past few months, St. Helens has been pushing lava to the surface at a pace of about 1 meter per second, down from 6 meters a second.
It's not yet clear whether it's slowing to a stop, or has reached a pace it can maintain for years or even decades, Dzurisin said.
"St. Helen's loves to build domes," he said. "It's built many in its history and we suspect some of those went on for decades.
"We might be in that situation — and then again we might not."
I'm sure the MSM that is pushing the concept that the Rocky mountains, etc took millions of years to be formed is not going to like what is happening at Mount ST. Helens
How many assumptions are involved in all your raked over theorizing?
Well directly they haven't mention anything, but your typical liberal believes in evolution and an earth that was formed over billions of years ago, vs the Creation opinion that the earth was created by God like say 10,000 years ago or what ever the Creationist figure is.
i remember back in the 70's it had what's known as a "shoestring" glacier- a long thin strip of glacier going down the cone. it's a rare form and was destroyed in the '80 eruption.
Then why the heck did *you* bring it up out of the blue?
Anyway, the tripe you've posted is so nonsensical that it actually is really a standout post. And that's not a compliment.
Actually, it's a really, really stupid comment, revealing his total ignorance (or denial) of even the most basic, rudimentary geology. But whatever floats your ark, I guess.
No. Actually I did this.
Knock off the insults.
I live in Vancouver, WA. The number of people talking about this is ZERO. Barely covered in a sidebar in the local rag.
Oh look, it's teething.
Such great pictures! Thanks, I love to see this stuff.
Amazing photos! The volcano erupted not upward, but sideways!
I was on my way out to Montana on May 19, 1980.
They would not let anyone go beyond Butte, Montana the following night because the ash was so bad.
In Great Falls, Montana people had to use hoses to wash it off their cars. A month later it was being sold in bags for $5.00. Amazing!
I was going to mention that somewhere we have a baggie with ash in it. It was free, as we scraped it off the car. :)
Thanks. Collapse was bound to happen; this didn't generate much of a pyroclastic flow (if any).
Subduction leads to orogeny.
Uh, Mt. St. Helens is one volcano. The Rockies stretch for a few thousand miles and are a mix of folded rocks and volcanic rocks that were uplifted, buried to their chins and then uplifted again. So there is no real comparison anyway.
Looks like the mother of all grey teeth incisors.
Only if the entire range consisted of volcanoes, as is the case with many island chains, and perhaps the Cascades. The Rockies, Himalayas, and other massive ranges, however, are not volcanic, so a different explanation is required to account for them. Plate tectonics is being demonstrated on a fairly frequent basis, so that's a good place to start.
We now return you to regularly scheduled thread.
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