National Ledger
Gene Byrd
Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Mount Saint Helens is emitting some steam and Fox News is reporting that Mt. Saint Helens in Washington state is 'putting on a little show today.' According to a report broadcast on FNC there has been low rates of seismic activity and low emissions of steam and volcanic activity and a minor production of ash was happening at 9:27am Pacific Time.

The vapor is seen rising out of the mountain from a live shot from the mountain and there was another slight earthquake over the weekend, according to the broadcast report. Is she ready to blow - likely not. But experts always warn that it is active.

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In November, a report from Reuters noted that the mountain reawakened in the fall of 2004 with new eruptions, and has produced thousands of shallow, regular, repetitive earthquakes since then. The report cited scientists led by Richard Iverson of the U.S. Geological Survey writing in the journal Nature, and their report said these quakes appear to result from the movement of a huge plug of igneous rock known as dacite being shoved out of the volcano.

The good news, they said, is that the volcano appears to be brooding rather than bursting, and the recent quakes seem unlikely to be a harbinger of a massive eruption along the lines of the one that occurred on May 18, 1980.

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Mount St. Helens is most famous for that catastrophic eruption nearly 27 tears ago. The 1980 eruption was the most deadly and economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States as 57 people were killed; 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways and 185 miles of highway were destroyed.

Mount St. Helens is the most active of the volcanoes in the Cascades Mountains, and geologically young compared to the others. It is believed to have the potential at some point in the future for another big eruption.

On the web: http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/