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 VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) - Mount St. Helens may be following the example of Kilauea in Hawaii with magma being replaced from a reservoir beneath the volcano as fast as it emerges as lava at the surface, scientists say.
While the two volcanoes are different in many respects, St. Helens appears to have become an "open system" as its domebuilding eruption that began in the fall of 2004 continues at a pace that has been unchanged for the past year, said Daniel Dzurisin, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory.
Analyzing of digital elevation models made from high-resolution aerial photographs, scientists have kept close tabs on the rate at which lava has been pushing into the crater. At first it was about a dumptruck load, roughly 8 cubic yards, per second.
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