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Rock Chunk Falls From Mount St. Helens
AP on Yahoo ^ | 5/12/06 | Peggy Andersen - ap

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."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Washington
KEYWORDS: chunk; falls; mount; rock; sthelens
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On the Net:

Mount St. Helens

Crater images

VolcanoCam


From last month..

Rock Slab Growing at Mount St. Helens ^

In this photo provided by the USGS, a helicopter flies past a new 'slab' rock growth in the crater of Mount St. Helens, Friday, April 28, 2006. (AP Photo/USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory, Dan Dzurisin, FILE)

1 posted on 05/12/2006 9:26:51 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge; cogitator; ken5050

bttt


2 posted on 05/12/2006 9:27:56 PM PDT by kayak (Praying for MozartLover's son, Jemian's son, all our military, and our President every day!)
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To: NormsRevenge

MSH06_new_growth_from_brutus_camera_05-05-06.jpg

Mount St. Helens dome, as seen from the remote camera on "Brutus".
USGS Photograph taken on May 5, 2006.


MSH06_new_growth_from_brutus_camera_05-12-06.jpg

New growth on Mount St. Helens dome, as seen from the remote camera on "Brutus".
USGS Photograph taken on May 12, 2006.

3 posted on 05/12/2006 9:29:21 PM PDT by NormsRevenge (Semper Fi)
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To: NormsRevenge

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


4 posted on 05/12/2006 9:43:32 PM PDT by ReformedBeckite
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To: NormsRevenge

It's all Bush's fault!


5 posted on 05/12/2006 9:46:10 PM PDT by NotJustAnotherPrettyFace
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To: ReformedBeckite
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

Ummm...where exactly have you seen the MSM media discussing the formation of the Rockies, ever?

And the overwhelming majority of the Rockies are non-volcanic in origin, btw.

6 posted on 05/12/2006 9:46:12 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: ReformedBeckite

*****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*****

I must have missed that special. Not aware of THAT MSM conspiracy.

So how long DID the Rockies take to form? I dont think it was millions of years either. More like billions. =P


7 posted on 05/12/2006 9:48:41 PM PDT by Zeppelin (Texas Longhorns === National Champions !!!)
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To: NormsRevenge

Ping!


8 posted on 05/12/2006 9:49:03 PM PDT by GOP Poet
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To: NormsRevenge

Great photos. Thanks for posting. When Mt. St. Helens blew, my husband was in North Dakota. By the time he arrived in Minnesota where we lived at the time, his car was covered in ash.


9 posted on 05/12/2006 9:51:05 PM PDT by sageb1 (This is the Final Crusade. There are only 2 sides. Pick one.)
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To: Zeppelin

Nah, not Billions of years for the Rockies. Tens of Millions. There were ancestral "Rockies" before the current Rockies, though.

Mount Saint Helens is a quite young volcano, likely no more than 40,000 years old, and no scientists have claimed otherwise. When you take into account erosion, and the fact that it has a tendency to keep destroying its top, when MSH does grow, it will do so pretty rapidly, geologically speaking.


10 posted on 05/12/2006 9:51:06 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: ReformedBeckite

I was thinking the same thing. Someone has to get over there and supress this anomaly.


11 posted on 05/12/2006 9:52:20 PM PDT by sine_nomine (No more RINO presidents. We need another Reagan.)
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To: Strategerist

ah. I wasnt aware. thanks!

learn something new every day.


12 posted on 05/12/2006 10:00:50 PM PDT by Zeppelin (Texas Longhorns === National Champions !!!)
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To: Zeppelin

Actually the current visible cone of Mt. St. Helens is only a little over 2,000 years old. It's the youngest of the Cascade volcanoes.


13 posted on 05/12/2006 10:02:44 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: Strategerist
OK, now darn it, Our President, is responsible for, terror attacks, hurricanes, problems with the intelligence agencies, but I will not allow him to be blamed for things that happened 40,000 years ago, I think a demonrat was in charge then.(grin)
14 posted on 05/12/2006 10:07:40 PM PDT by Foolsgold (dumped daschel he he he he)
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To: NormsRevenge

That is cool.


15 posted on 05/12/2006 10:08:51 PM PDT by pollyannaish
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To: Strategerist
Ummm...where exactly have you seen the MSM media discussing the formation of the Rockies, ever?

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. When I went to school a long time ago, I was taught that the Rockies mountains were formed over millions of years from the earth plates colliding against each other, If you take what's been happening on Mount St. Helen in the last couple of years and figure growth rates on the dome, you can see that a mountain would not need millions of years to be formed, but that a mountain or mountain range could be realistically be formed in the Creationist time frame. I don't want this discussion to move away from it's original purpose and get into a Creation vs. Evolution debate. Never the less you would think that the MSM would do more reporting on what is going on at Mt. ST. Helens but they don't, The MSM spends almost all of it's time slamming Bush and pushing stuff like Global warming. For them to do much reporting on Mt. St. Helens might just bring up these issues between the Creationists vs the Evolutionist, which would work against their socialistic, anti Christian mentality.

Just to add another quick thought that is off the subject and that is the subject of global warming. In my opinion the real issue behind Global warming isn't the Global warming it self but to get people thinking that the earth was formed billions of years ago, thus taking away the mentality of the idea that the earth is fairly young and was created by God lets say 10,000 years ago. All the charts that the global warming people use show data, unproven data, over millions of years that they believe the earth was formed.

16 posted on 05/12/2006 10:22:58 PM PDT by ReformedBeckite
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To: Zeppelin
I would have to disagree with you as far as to how the earth came into being.

But off the subject, what kind of beer did you brew, I like the micro brewed beers and imported beers a lot better then the American mass produced beers. My favorites are the ales, especially those called Bitters over in Great Britain which I think is called a Pale Ale in the States.<--I'm not sure about that though.

17 posted on 05/12/2006 10:30:21 PM PDT by ReformedBeckite
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To: ReformedBeckite
If you take what's been happening on Mount St. Helen in the last couple of years and figure growth rates on the dome, you can see that a mountain would not need millions of years to be formed, but that a mountain or mountain range could be realistically be formed in the Creationist time frame.

Well, it's remarkably difficult to argue with someone who practically revels in and enjoys being ignorant, such as a Young-Earth Creationist, but I'll cover a couple of points.

1) As I've noted, Mount Saint Helens (not in the Rockies, btw) is a very young mountain, with volcanic activity at that location likely only 40,000 years old, and the present cone a bit over 2,000 years old. Scientists have NEVER claimed MSH is millions of years old, but I'm aware of various weird YEC strawman claims otherwise (it's rather difficult to keep track of such egregious producers of abject stupidity as YECs...there's so much to follow.)

2) And in no way, shape, or form is the rate of growth of the MSH dome, or the depth of the deposits from the 1980 eruption, any sort of shock or suprise to geologists, doesn't overturn any geological theories, and has no bearing on the earth in general being billions of years old and most mountains being tens of millions of years old, YEC fantasies otherwise.

3) And keep in mind Mount Saint Helens is SEVERAL THOUSAND FEET SHORTER now than it was when Westerners first saw it 150 years ago. You can't simply extrapolate out rates of dome growth for the last few years to derive an age of Mount Saint Helens (and like I've said, mainstream geologists don't claim the current cone is any older than a couple thousand years old anyway.)

4) As 1980 demonstrated, MSH has a history of violent eruptions, there have been dozens documented in the last few thousand years, a couple of them MUCH larger than the 1980 blast. In addition to erosion constantly shortening the mountain, it keeps blowing its top off; it has to grow pretty fast when it DOES grow or otherwise it wouldn't be a mountain, it would be a hole in the ground.

5) And as I've already noted, the current Rockies are in general, non-volcanic, and not volcanoes (there was a lot of big caldera volcanism in the region of the Rockies..not just Yellowstone...in the past few tens of millions of years, though. This generally left large nondescript holes in the ground, not mountains, however.) There are a variety of mountain ranges around the world that are rising, which can be directly measured by GPS...and it's never faster than about 1 centimeter a year. There's no conceivable way for the mountains of the earth to have been formed in 6,000 years. Sorry.

6) There's nothing "conservative" about Young Earth Creationism or "liberal" about believing the earth is 4+ billion years old. The former is simply blind, egregious stupidity of the worst sort, built largely on lies and deception and dubious interpretations of the Bible, and the latter is built on years of hard work by tens of thousands of scientists with no particular agenda other than the truth.

18 posted on 05/12/2006 10:37:58 PM PDT by Strategerist
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To: ReformedBeckite

I believe that batch was a Oktoberfest Vienna Lager, my favorite so far. www.mrbeer.com

good stuff. my next batch is going to be an Irish Stout! =)


19 posted on 05/12/2006 10:46:05 PM PDT by Zeppelin (Texas Longhorns === National Champions !!!)
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To: Strategerist
"tens of thousands of scientists with no particular agenda other than the truth."

No agenda other than truth? Many do. Just as many wish to prove homosexuality is genetic. There are few without agendas.

20 posted on 05/12/2006 10:47:21 PM PDT by sageb1 (This is the Final Crusade. There are only 2 sides. Pick one.)
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