Research Paper On Mt St Helens

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Mt. St. Helens is famously for its eruption on May 18, 1980, although the mountain had previous eruptions with four different stages and the stages often had similarities including the devastating one in 1980; in addition, the 1980 eruption presented serious havoc that led to a long road of recovery. The first stage known as the Ape Canyon Stage and according to the U.S. Geological survey it was ignited from series of small eruptions that created the birth of the mountain; during this phase these eruptions possibly formed domes and pyroclastic flows. Mt. St. Helens in the Cougar stage formulated lava domes and flows just like the Ape Canyon stage including eruptions that escalated enormous volumes of ash along with pyroclastic flows; furthermore …show more content…

St. Helens there were indications that the mountain could erupt soon. On March 16, 1980 Mt. St. Helens had a set of small earthquakes followed with hundreds of more earthquakes that proceeded on March 27 which began series of eruptions. These series of eruptions occurred once per hour for the entire month of March and one per day in April and by April 22 the mountain began to settle down.
Steam-blast eruption from the summit crater of Mount St. Helens on April 6, 1980:
After Mt. St. Helens halt of volcanic activity, the mountain began more eruptions from May 7 to May 17 and in the duration of that time there were more than 10,000 earthquakes.
The eruption was expected; but without an exact timeline, an earthquake with the magnitude of 5.1 ignited the Mt. St. Helens eruption on May 18, 1980 that started events that were gruesome. There was a debris avalanche that is recorded as the largest in history that surged into the North Fork Toutle River valley resulting in the valley being filled up to 150 feet and hummocky deposit which consisted of volcanic debris and glacial ice. The avalanche also impacted Spirit Lake by raising its water level up to 200 feet and bottom by 295 feet. One interesting fact about this event is, “The total avalanche volume is about 2.5 km3 (3.3 billion cubic yards), equivalent to 1 million Olympic swimming …show more content…

The removal and disposal of ash from highways, roads, buildings, and airport runways were monumental tasks for some eastern Washington communities. In addition, the cost of removing ash amounted to $.2.2 million lasting 10 weeks to clean up the ash in Yakima. Landfills and quarries were utilized to urgently extract ash primarily from routes used for transportation and civil works.
Although it was difficult to find the precise cost of damages from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens there were hefty estimates of cost to restore areas. Reflecting the total loss regarding the timber, civil works, and agriculture was estimated $2 to $3 billion. Congress provided aid of $951 million to agencies like the Small Business Administration, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency for restoration

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