"
Recent observations: The volcano is clear this morning and sporting an intermittent steam plume. There have been no explosive events since 5:25 p.m. local time on Tuesday. After the event Tuesday, seismicity returned to a level similar to that in the several hours prior to the explosion, and it remains at about that level at this time. Yesterday, the new dome was found to be remarkably intact. Ballistics up to ~1 m in diameter were hurled as far as the northern flank of the old dome. No ballistics were found along or beyond the crater rim. Ash deposits were found along a narrow eastward swath. Ash up to ~1 inch thick was deposited along the east flank of the volcano. Although no obvious vent was observed, the distribution of ballistics and ash suggest the explosion emanated from a source very near that of the October 1, 2004 and January 16, 2005 explosions. Today, crews will conduct more visual observations, measure gases, do routine maintenance on some far-field instrument stations, and redeploy GPS units. "
Ballistics 1 meter in diameter! No wonder nobody wants to go in the crater.
and this happened with virtually no warning, a small (magnitude 2, would not even be felt by someone standing in the crater) earthquake an hour or 2 before.
Always before there has been a ramping up of earthquake activity, in a pattern that warns of an eruption is likely.
They were thinking of doing a helicopter drop of some more 'spiders' (insturment packages on legs to replace the 7 that stopped responding. 1 partially came back to life, but none of the ones on rock are working, and the ones on ice are considered unreliable as ice tends to melt suddenly
)
