If high inflation, ultra violent S0uth American gangs infiltrating the country, skyrocketing prices for groceries, and North Korea adding a bunch of nukes to their missile arsenal wasn’t enough to make you fill your underpants with excrement, how about the potential for Mount St. Helens to blow her top off — not in a fun way — and spew magma and ash everywhere?
Brings a whole new meaning to the game “the floor is lava,” doesn’t it?
According to a brand new article from the UK’s Daily Mail, there have been somewhere in the ballpark of 350 earthquakes recorded at the 8,300 foot volcano located in Washington state by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. I’m not an expert, but as Jerry Lee Lewis once observed, that’s a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.
The vast majority of these, around 95 percent, have been pretty low magnitude, falling at 1.0 or less on the measuring scale.
The largest quake recently felt at the volcano, which is located in southwestern Washington about 50 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon, was a magnitude 2.0 on May 31, 2024.
There are fears the earthquakes could lead to another massive explosion reminiscent of 1980s eruption that left 57 people dead and permanently altered the area’s ecosystem. In early June, the number of earthquakes recorded per week reached a peak of 38 events per week, mostly happening around 4.6 miles below the crater floor.
Specialized equipment has detected that magma has been flowing through chambers deep underground, causing the volcano to recharge.
The last time this bad girl took her top off, which was 1980, the eruption killed a total of 57 people.
‘Short-term increases in earthquake rates are common at Mount St. Helens and are considered part of background seismicity,’ experts at the Cascades Volcano Observatory went on to say in a statement released this week. ‘The last two periods of elevated seismicity (in 2023 and 2024) represent the largest short-term increase in earthquake rates since the last eruption ended in 2008.’
“However, similar sequences involving even more quakes broke out in 1988 to 1992, 1995 to 1996, and 1997 to 1999. None of these directly triggered an eruption,” the report stated. “The quakes are thought to be caused by pressurization of the magma transport system, which in turn is triggered by the arrival of additional magma, a process called recharge.”
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So how does a volcano like Mt. St. Helens recharge? It’s due to magma bubbling up through the lower crusts and building up in a reservoir that is located between 2.5 and 6 miles below sea level.
‘There have been no significant changes in other monitoring parameters (ground deformation, volcanic gas or thermal emissions) and no change in hazards at Mount St. Helens as a result of this activity,’ the Observatory stated in conclusion.
However, back in 1980, when Mt. St. Helens decided to unleash the fury of hell like a teenage girl dumped for her sister on prom night, there were tiny earthquakes like the ones happening now, just before she flipped her lid.
On May 18, 1980, residents flooded the area as they sat in open fields and rooftops as rumors of a volcanic eruption spread. Millions all over the world waited around for two months to see what would happen next.
But on that morning, at 8.32am, the results turned out to be deadly as a magnitude-5 earthquake struck, causing the volcano to lose its crypto-dome and erupt.
Folks living in the area were without a decent location to take shelter from the explosion. This eruption caused mudslides, an avalanche, tree damage, hot lava spewed all over the place, killing much of the wildlife that lived in the heavily forested area.
The ash that was shot up into the air caused a number of health issues for those who lived in the area at the time and survived the incident.
Just imagine the widespread destruction that would occur if the volcano erupted once again. And with our economy so badly shredded, how would the areas impacted by the blast be able to rebuild?
Scary stuff.