Time to start watching Mt. Rainier?

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Erik Klemetti notes that Mt. Rainier has been experiencing increased seismic activity as of late. (details)

Overall activity level is up since the last month and the little earth quakes are a little bigger. No particular explanations are forthcoming yet. Current seismic data are here.

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14 thoughts on “Time to start watching Mt. Rainier?

  1. I used to work in the Green River Valley and saw the geologic report for my work place. If there was an earthquake, the valley would liquify, and if Mt. Rainier erupts, then there would be a giant mud flow. Fun times. Mt. St. Helens was much easier to climb after the eruption. Look on the bright side.

  2. If it blows I hope it at least waits until I can finish testing my latest instrument; I’ll be really annoyed if it erupted before I was ready to use my new toy on the volcano.

  3. That’s pretty frightening actually. I watched a documentary about what is likely to happen if Rainier actually goes up. We’re talking massive mudflows covering the entire valley.

    Assuming evacuation plans go without a hitch, they estimate more than thirty thousand casualties. Not enough infrastructure to get people out and not enough high ground for people to get to. If evac doesn’t manage to go as planned, they’d be lucky if the casualties are only twice that estimate.

    Keeping in mind that it needn’t be a full eruption to trigger incredible mudflows…

  4. My new toy? Well if it were an anti-eruption device I’d be a gazillionaire, but the last time I checked I was still a poor starving scientist. It’s just a camera to track the sand and sulfur dioxide plumes – day or night – when there are no low clouds, no rain, no fog. no mist, the sand plume has to be not-too-dense, and there’s not too much water vapor in the air. The device should, in principle, work sometimes. I’m hoping sometimes is most of the time in most cases.

  5. I have a girl friend in federal way.
    If we are looking at a major eruption Not only would we have the mud to deal with but the ash as well, any air craft would have minutes to change coarse and get away.

    Both PDX and Sea-Tac could very well close so arial evacs are out of the question. we might get a few planes off the ground but once in the Air, it would be the ash that would nock em out of the sky as the ash turns to ceramic in the jet engines.

    Those of you say no big deal as you couldn’t see it.
    It would be a big deal when I-5 is wiped out. Trafic would be backed up for miles as they would have to turn it all around.

    Estimated damages would be 10 fold because of todays economic issues. granted a few hundred thousand jobs would open up in the area of construction and road work. But then there is the long term environmental impacts we wouldn’t be just removing that stuff wed be rebuilding on it. on the positive end, hmm might raise some areas above sea level, we get nutrients vital for farming and agriculture . if any farmers still have land left over in that area, people would have to work together as a team, basically that entire area would be starting form Scratch.

  6. um I was wondering if any one here can make sense of this graph?

    and don’t take this out of context, i am not here to create a panic. but I am very curious and I am awaiting word back form the Vulcanologist I wrote to.
    at any rate I also noticed in that news area of Mt rainier in latest news that they are stating that they are keeping a close eye on it. and they are saying that this is normal.

    I have a black and white image of a harmonic tremor. some of these look very close to that image. I hope i am wrong. but it makes for some very interesting talk 🙂

    I am not an almarist type I am just very curious.

    We also here need to be careful in how we word things and hopefully not create a panic.

    Here is the simple link:http://www.geophys.washington.edu/SEIS/PNSN/WEBICORDER/VOLC/STAR_SHZ_UW.2009092912.html

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