70 percent and counting

The flurry of earthquakes at Mount St. Helens intensified further Thursday, and one scientist put the chance of a small eruption happening in the next few days at 70 percent.

Jeff Wynn, chief scientist at the U.S. Geologic Survey’s Cascade Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Wash., said tiny quakes were happening three or four times a minute. Larger quakes, with magnitudes of 3 to 3.3, were happening every three or four minutes, he said.

New measurements show the 975-foot lava dome in the volcano’s crater has moved 261/27 inches to the north since Monday, Wynn said.

“Imagine taking a 1,000-foot-high pile of rocks and moving it 261/27 inches. For a geologist, that’s a lot of energy,” Wynn said.

Wynn estimated there was a 70 percent chance the activity will result in an eruption.

I will go out on a limb and say there will be some sort of eruption before the weekend is over (within the next three days).

What do you think?