New Volcanic Gas Monitoring Station Installed at Mount St. Helens.
This summer, a new monitoring station was installed on the lava dome in the crater of Mount St. Helens to "sniff" volcanic gases.
Like most volcanoes, the majority of the gas emitted at Mount St. Helens is water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2) with lesser amounts of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). In the past, scientists would visit sites inside the crater or conduct airborne surveys to collect gas emission data. With this new station, gas concentrations can be measured daily and the monitoring data sent back to the Cascades Volcano Observatory via radio link for analysis. Monitoring the chemical composition of these gases offers important clues to the inner workings of the volcano. An increase in gas output or a change in the ratios of the different gases can be some of the first above-ground signs of an increase or important change in volcanic activity. Read more about volcanic gas monitoring at Mount St. Helens.
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.