Geology topics

Weston A. Thelen

Publications and source records attributed to Weston A. Thelen.

21 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

USGS2008

Seismicity associated with renewed dome building at Mount St. Helens, 2004-2005

The reawakening of Mount St. Helens after 17 years and 11 months of slumber was heralded by a swarm of shallow (depth <2 km) volcano-tectonic earthquakes on September 23, 2004. After an initial decline on September 25, seismicity rapidly intensified; by September 29, M d >2 earthquakes were occurring at a rate of ~1 per minute. A gradual transition from volcano-tectonic to hybrid and low-frequency events occurred along with this intensification, a characteristic of many precursory swarms at Mount St. Helens before dome-building eruptions in the 1980s. The first explosion occurred October 1, 2004, 8.5 days after the first earthquakes, and was followed by three other explosions over the next four days. Seismicity declined after each explosion and after two energetic noneruptive tremor episodes on October 2 and 3. Following the last explosion of this series, on October 5, seismicity declined significantly. Over the next ten days seismicity was dominated by several event families; by October 16, spacing between events had become so regular that we dubbed the earthquakes “drumbeats.” Through the end of 2005 seismicity was dominated by these drumbeats, although occasional larger earthquakes ( M d 2.0-3.4) dominated seismic energy release. Over time there were significant variations in drumbeat size, spacing, and spectra that correlated with changes in the style of extrusion at the surface. Changes in drumbeat character did not correspond to variations in magma flux at the conduit, indicating that drumbeat size and spacing may be more a function of the mechanics of extrusion than of the extrusion rate.

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USGS2008

Near-real-time information products for Mount St. Helens -- tracking the ongoing eruption

The rapid onset of energetic seismicity on September 23, 2004, at Mount St. Helens caused seismologists at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and the Cascades Volcano Observatory to quickly improve and develop techniques that summarized and displayed seismic parameters for use by scientists and the general public. Such techniques included webicorders (Web-based helicorder-like displays), graphs showing RSAM (real-time seismic amplitude measurements), RMS (root-mean-square) plots, spectrograms, location maps, automated seismic-event detectors, focal mechanism solutions, automated approximations of earthquake magnitudes, RSAM-based alarms, and time-depth plots for seismic events. Many of these visual-information products were made available publicly as Web pages generated and updated routinely. The graphs and maps included short written text that explained the concepts behind them, which increased their value to the nonseismologic community that was tracking the eruption. Laypeople could read online summaries of the scientific interpretations and, if they chose, review some of the basic data, thereby providing a better understanding of the data used by scientists to make interpretations about ongoing eruptive activity, as well as a better understanding of how scientists worked to monitor the volcano.

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USGS2008

Absolute and relative locations of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens, Washington, using continuous data: Implications for magmatic processes

This study uses a combination of absolute and relative locations from earthquake multiplets to investigate the seismicity associated with the eruptive sequence at Mount St. Helens between September 23, 2004, and November 20, 2004. Multiplets, a prominent feature of seismicity during this time period, occurred as volcano-tectonic, hybrid, and low-frequency earthquakes spanning a large range of magnitudes and lifespans. Absolute locations were improved through the use of a new one-dimensional velocity model with excellent shallow constraints on P-wave velocities. We used jackknife tests to minimize possible biases in absolute and relative locations resulting from station outages and changing station configurations. In this paper, we show that earthquake hypocenters shallowed before the October 1 explosion along a north-dipping structure under the 1980-86 dome. Relative relocations of multiplets during the initial seismic unrest and ensuing eruption showed rather small source volumes before the October 1 explosion and larger tabular source volumes after October 5. All multiplets possess absolute locations very close to each other. However, the highly dissimilar waveforms displayed by each of the multiplets analyzed suggest that different sources and mechanisms were present within a very small source volume. We suggest that multiplets were related to pressurization of the conduit system that produced a stationary source that was highly stable over long time periods. On the basis of their response to explosions occurring in October 2004, earthquakes not associated with multiplets also appeared to be pressure dependent. The pressure source for these earthquakes appeared, however, to be different from the pressure source of the multiplets.

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