An analysis of the earthquake time series at Mount St. Helens, Washington, in the framework of recent volcanic activity

The analysis of the earthquake time distribution at Mount St. Helens reveals a good correlation between the physical state of the volcano and statistical parameters of earthquake sequence. There are three main seismic phases in the whole 1980–1986 period. The first one precedes the main eruption of May 18, 1980. It begins with a sudden increase of the seismicity level in late March and continues with an Utsu (1961) type decay of the seismic occurrence rate, characterized by a small value of the decay coefficient, β. The second phase lasts from the cataclysmic eruption on May 18, 1980 until the continuous dome building episode in 1983 and is characterized by a very slow exponential increase of the background level of seismicity. The third phase covers the remaining part of the sample and is characterized by a stationary earthquake clustering process episodically interrupted by peaks of activity related to eruptions. The trends in seismic occurrence rate within each phase, as well as the statistical parameter variations at each transition, are analyzed and discussed in the framework of volcanic activity. This leads to the conclusion that statistical techniques may give a significant contribution in understanding changes in volcanic processes such as those at Mount St. Helens.