Mount St. Helens Exhales Ash, Steam
Posted on: Tuesday, 5 October 2004, 06:00 CDT
MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Wash. - Mount St. Helens exhaled a spectacular roiling cloud of steam and ash Tuesday, sprinkling grit on a small town some 25 miles from the volcano.
The volcano has been venting steam and small amounts of ash daily since Friday, but Tuesday morning's burst was the largest, producing a billowing, dark gray cloud that rose thousands of feet above the 8,364-foot-high rim of the crater and streamed miles to the northeast.
For days, scientists have been warning that the volcano could blow at any moment with enough force to endanger lives and property. After the latest burst of steam, it was not immediately whether the strong eruption was still to come or whether the pressure inside the volcano had eased.
Either way, scientists said there was hardly any chance of a repeat of the cataclysmic 1980 eruption that killed 57 people and coated much of the Northwest with ash.
The town of Randle, with a population of about 2,000, kept students with asthma inside after getting a light dusting of ash.
Officials of sparsely populated Skamania County also were concerned about that the ash might harm hunters in the area for elk season.
Officials at the Coldwater Ridge Visitors Center, 8 1/2 miles north of the mountain, told the several dozen people at the center's parking lot not to drive into the ash if the plume reached them. However, the cloud trailed away to the east.
Ken Marshall drove up from Valley Springs, Calif., hoping to see an eruption.
"It's almost like clockwork," he said. "It blows in the morning and then there are earthquakes and rockfall all the rest of the day."
Earthquakes below magnitude 3 continued into Tuesday morning, and the lava dome within the crater kept swelling. Geologists said molten rock, or magma, beneath the crater was apparently pushing it upward.
Scientists had been expecting steam bursts as superheated rock came into contact with runoff from melting snow and ice. Runoff from a melting glacier formed a bubbling pond about 120 feet across in the crater, U.S. Geological Survey spokeswoman Catherine Puckett said Tuesday.
The Johnston Ridge Observatory, about five miles from the crater, has been closed since the weekend, and most air traffic has been prohibited below 13,000 feet and within five miles of the volcano.
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On the Net:
USGS Cascades Volcano Laboratory: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov
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