Mount St. Helens, Wash. ? Earthquake activity has increased at Mount St. Helens, but scientists said Saturday there was no reason to raise the volcano’s alert level.

Scientists said earthquake activity had been low until Friday, indicating molten rock was moving upward with little resistance. By Saturday, however, quakes of magnitude 2.4 were occurring every one to two minutes, they said.

“It’s at levels equal to or higher than the Oct. 5 steam and ash eruption,” said Jeff Wynn, the U.S. Geological Survey’s chief scientist for volcano hazards at Vancouver.

A bubble on the south side of the dome has also risen to at least 330 feet since scientists first spotted it on Sept. 30 and is now almost as tall as the dome’s 1,000-foot summit, said USGS geologist John Pallister.

“The blister is a rather remarkable event,” he said, saying that it implies magma is less than a mile below the surface.

Scientists will monitor the bulge to see how its movement relates to the seismic activity, Pallister said.

Scientists have said earthquake activity was expected to ebb and flow, and the most likely scenario now is weeks or months of occasional steam blasts and possibly some eruptions of fresh volcanic rock. In order to raise the alert level, scientists said an eruption would have to be imminent or occurring.

Thousands of small earthquakes shook the peak as the 8,364-foot volcano in southwest Washington spewed clouds of steam and small amounts of volcanic ash each day from Oct. 1 to Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people.

An hourlong blast Tuesday sent a thick cloud thousands of feet into the air. Seismic activity diminished afterward.

Geologists have said there is little chance of anything similar to the blast on May 18, 1980, that blew 1,300 feet off the top of the peak, killed 57 people and covered much of the inland Pacific Northwest with gritty volcanic ash.

A family from Olympia, Wash., tries to view Mount St. Helens, which was obscured by clouds and rain at ColdwaterRidge Visitor Center. Inclement weather has hidden the smoldering volcano for several days.