Largest quake yet hits WA's Mount Rainier in ongoing ‘earthquake swarm’

The Brief

• Mount Rainier is experiencing a swarm of hundreds of tiny earthquakes, the largest since 2009, prompting adjacent monitoring by seismologists.

• The swarm, believed to beryllium caused by blistery fluids moving done faults, has calmed but could intensify again, with a caller magnitude 2.3 quake recorded.

• Seismologist Wes Thelen notes that specified swarms are not antithetic for Mount Rainier, which is not considered peculiarly progressive implicit a agelong timescale.

SEATTLE - Seismologists are intimately monitoring Mount Rainier aft a swarm of earthquakes struck the Pacific Northwest’s tallest volcano this week. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reports that hundreds of tiny quakes person occurred since the swarm began, making it the largest specified lawsuit astatine the upland since 2009.

Wes Thelen, a seismologist with the Cascades Volcano Observatory, told FOX 13 Seattle that the quakes began arsenic a concentrated radical of seismic events happening successful speedy succession.

What they're saying

"We had an summation successful enactment successful seismic enactment up to astir 26 events an hour, which is simply a beauteous bully lawsuit complaint for a quiescent volcano," explained Thelen. "Since then, it's tailed off."

He added that portion the swarm has calmed slightly, the enactment could intensify again.

"We don’t needfully person a crystal shot to recognize what is happening nether there," helium said.

By the numbers

As of Wednesday morning, seismic instruments had recorded a magnitude 2.3 earthquake among the latest successful the sequence. Thelen said the swarm is believed to beryllium caused by blistery fluids moving done pre-existing faults beneath the volcano.

"These things astatine Mount Rainier we person seen before, and we expect to spot them again successful the future," Thelen explained.

Though Rainier past erupted astir 1,000 years ago, Thelen noted that the volcano is not unusually progressive erstwhile viewed connected a longer timescale.

"Even though it was a 1000 years ago, Rainier is not wide successful a peculiarly progressive authorities over, let’s say, 10,000 years," helium pointed out.

News reports from amusement scientists detected a mates twelve earthquakes astatine Mount Rainier backmost successful 2017. These excessively were classified by USGS arsenic "swarms."

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The Source

Information successful this communicative comes from archetypal reporting by FOX 13 Seattle newsman Lauren Donovan.