wallpaper No Biggie

There have been a few reports today, in OregonLive, KGW and KATU, about a series of small quakes at Mt. St Helens over the weekend.

There were 15 quakes, mostly in the magnitude 1 range, with a couple around magnitude 2.5 recorded by the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. They were about two miles deep just northwest of the volcano.

Small swarms like this are not uncommon under any of the major Cascade peaks and the surrounding area. All three reports appear to be based on the same AP source, and all agree that this shouldn't be taken as a warning of any incipient St Helens activity. On the other hand, if you're in the vicinity of Yellowstone, you might want to hightail it out of there. In fact, I'd like to recommend that any geological activity, anywhere on the planet, should be taken to indicate that the terror threat at Yellowstone has risen from red to at least crimson, and very likely ultraviolet.

wallpaper Reviewing The Year's Geology News

The Onion reports on the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano and its eruption earlier this year:

The eruption was initially attributed to Huldufólk elves believed to be angry at mortals for the desecration of their rock dwellings during the winter of 2009. While gifts of sweets to the elves seemed to produce small gaps in the ash that allowed airspace to be briefly reopened, the cloud as a whole lingered. It was only after millions of travelers had already spent days stranded at airports that embarrassed officials finally conceded that another creature was probably responsible.

After ruling out the 300-foot Lagarfljóts worm, investigators concluded that only Grýla—best known for emerging from her cave at Christmastime in search of naughty children to stuff in a sack—possessed the power necessary to generate an eruption of Eyjafjallajökull's magnitude. By then, however, many food items shipped by air had begun to spoil, and a number of world leaders had already missed the funeral of Polish president Lech Kaczyński.

It's official: my understanding of geology and volcanism is out of date.