Mapping the inside of Mt St. Helens
A new array of seismometers, combined with a series of planned explosions, will be used to map the interior of the Mt. St. Helens volcano to a depth of eighty kilometers or fifty miles.
To get the job done, starting next week roughly 65 people will fan out across the mountain to deploy 3,500 small seismometers along roads and back-country trails. They will drill 24 holes some 25 metres deep, drop in industrial explosives used for quarrying, and refill the holes (see ‘Under the dome’). The plan is to detonate the explosives in separate shots over four nights. Each blast will shake the ground as much as a magnitude-2 earthquake.
Results from the active blasts will be combined with the passive seismic part of the experiment, which is already under way: 70 larger seismometers around the mountain are measuring how long waves from natural earthquakes take to travel through the ground. Their data can be used to probe as far as 80 kilometres down, says Vidale.
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A new array of seismometers, combined with a series of planned explosions, will be used to map the interior of the Mt. St. Helens volcano to a depth of eighty kilometers or fifty miles.
To get the job done, starting next week roughly 65 people will fan out across the mountain to deploy 3,500 small seismometers along roads and back-country trails. They will drill 24 holes some 25 metres deep, drop in industrial explosives used for quarrying, and refill the holes (see ‘Under the dome’). The plan is to detonate the explosives in separate shots over four nights. Each blast will shake the ground as much as a magnitude-2 earthquake.
Results from the active blasts will be combined with the passive seismic part of the experiment, which is already under way: 70 larger seismometers around the mountain are measuring how long waves from natural earthquakes take to travel through the ground. Their data can be used to probe as far as 80 kilometres down, says Vidale.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Using quarrying charges on an active volcano? There’s no way anything can go wrong with that.
If I lived in this area, I’d buy a good set of ear plugs.
It’s got Jurassic park written all over….