Scientists are closely watching Mount St. Helens again after steam eruptions on Monday and Friday — the first in more than a decade — shot white clouds and ash into the air 10,000 feet above sea level.
The volcano, located in southwest Washington approximately 50 miles from Portland, continues to show strong signs of an eruption. It has led the United States Geological Survey to classify it a Level 3 — a high alert given to volcano activity — and to evacuate the Johnston Ridge Observatory five miles from the crater.
University graduate student Heather Wright, a geology major, traveled to Washington to see an eruption firsthand with seven other graduate students in the department.
“Most students are studying volcanoes, but not ones actively erupting,” Wright said. “We were happy to see a smoke eruption.”
Both observation points close to the volcanic site, Cascade Peaks Observatory and Coldwater Ridge, were packed with about 5,000 people, according to Wright.
Wright said she will return to the volcano today to await more eruptions and also try to gather an ash sample. Scientists studying volcanoes can typically get many clues from ash samples, including whether there is new magma underneath the volcano that may spew in later eruptions.
Wright’s enthusiasm is matched by colleagues waiting to see how this eruption compares to the explosive activity on May 18, 1980, when a 5.1 magnitude earthquake near the summit sparked an eruption that killed 57 people. The eruption also flattened 230 square miles northeast of the summit, causing ecological damage still not fully repaired.
“A friend called me asking if there was going to be another eruption similar to the 1980s one,” Wright said. “People in her town were cleaning the streets for days to remove all the ash.”
Alerts on Sept. 23 reported that it had 200 small earthquakes, an amount not seen since November 2001, according to the USGS.
Since then, the earthquakes have become more frequent, reaching a rate of one earthquake per minute after Monday’s eruption. Scientists at the USGS have also recorded a large-scale uplift of part of the mountain’s glacier and a nearby segment of the lava dome.
The danger with the current activity is limited to air traffic around the volcano, the USGS reports.
Mountains closer to home have also shown some recent activity unrelated to the activity on St. Helens. According to the Cascade Observatory, Mount Hood experienced a small earthquake Monday because of a shift in tectonic plates. Recent earthquakes at Mount St. Helens were a product of magma rising or groundwater becoming heated.
Other activity in Oregon includes the South Sister volcano range east of Eugene, where there have been reports of a bulge that has steadily increased yearly by one inch since first recorded seven years ago, according to The Register-Guard.
Wright said the University has a strong connection to Mount St. Helens. After the major eruption in 1980, the USGS sought out University Geology Professor Kathy Goldman to speak to the public on behalf of the government group. Goldman, now on sabbatical in Italy, is trying to speed up her return to Oregon so she can study the volcano.
Wright, who is working toward her Ph.D., said her interest in geology began when she worked for the USGS studying Computer Information Systems, a system for mapping, and doing field work twice yearly with the group.
Her interests include the mix of sciences a geologist uses to study a volcanic area.
“I enjoy that after months of research and studying a site, that you can go out and do field work, really seeing the area for yourself,” Wright said.
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