Breaking News: Mount St. Helens eruption ends; hazard level falls
Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:03 AM PST
By Barbara Laboe blaboe@tdn.com
Printable version
E-mail this articleSaying the ongoing eruption at Mount St. Helens appears to have paused, the U.S. Geological Survey today announced it is lowering the volcano’s eruption advisory level.
“It seems to be taking a rest,” said Cynthia Gardner, lead scientist at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver. “And we’re saying, ‘Stay tuned.’ ”
The current eruption began in October of 2004, though it has slowed in recent years. Since January, officials have been unable to find any evidence on ongoing eruption of volcanic rock into the crater, Gardner said. Those findings were confirmed this past week when good weather allowed crews to get into the field to add a GPS monitor and retrieve photographs from a remote camera.
“All movements that we can detect are more indicative of a settling of the lava dome rather than active growth,” Gardner said.
It’s actually common for eruptions to pause, and Gardner said officials will closely monitor the volcano to see if this is a pause or the end of the 2004 eruption. Monitoring will continue at current levels, though the daily updates on activity will be scaled back to weekly updates, she said.
The new warning levels announced today drop the alert level from watch to advisory, which means activity has decreased significantly but continues to be closely monitored. The aviation code also has dropped from orange -- one step below imminent eruption -- to yellow.
Because they’re not sure what the volcano’s next step will be, officials decided not to drop the levels back to normal and green, which would officially indicate the eruption is over, Gardner said.
See Friday’s Daily News for more details.
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WAIT & SEE wrote on Feb 21, 2008 12:14 PM:
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Lava Smurf wrote on Feb 21, 2008 4:33 PM:
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