Radio interferometric detection of a traveling ionospheric disturbance excited by the explosion of Mount St. Helens

A large-amplitude traveling ionospheric disturbance (TID) was detected over Owens Valley, California, on May 18, 1980, by a highly sensitive very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) radio astronomy experiment. This TID is interpreted as the response of the ionosphere to a gravity wave excited in the neutral atmosphere by the explosion of Mount St. Helens that took place at 1532 UT on that day. A model, invoking the point-excitation of internal gravity waves in an isothermal atmosphere, which fits observations of the TID at several other stations, leads to identification of the features observed in the VLBI data. Small-amplitude higher-frequency changes in the ionosphere were detected for several hours after the passage of the large-amplitude Mount St. Helens TID, but it is not clear whether these were excited by the passage of the gravity wave or were background fluctuations.