Over this past week, I saw a TikTok video of a girl from Portland, Oregon, claiming that there was a "weird" sulfur-like smell spreading across the Portland metro area. The creator of the TikTok and its comments stated it was due to the ground shifting, as a sign of Oregon's earthquake threat, of which has a 7-15% chance of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake within the next 50 years (Emergency Management of Washington County, Oregon).
I looked this information up and found that "...as concerns of the odor stemming from a possible eruption spread on social media. Using air quality and seismic equipment, officials have confirmed that there has been 'no abnormal activities or readings' from Mount St. Helens between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning" (KGW8).
The odor resembled "'natural gas, propane, burning garbage, burning rubber, ammonia, and others,' Cowlitz fire officials said" (KGW8), in which The U.S. Geological Survey states there has been no increase compositions of gases coming from vents of their monitoring systems, as well as the amount of sulfur dioxide emitted from Mount St. Helens, which rules out the possibility of Oregon's due Earthquake being a concern from the "weird smell".
