On May 18th, 1980, one of the most prominent volcanic eruptions in US History took place in the state of Washington. Mount St. Helens had been dormant for almost 100 years before March 15th. On this day, two months before the eruption several small earthquakes shook the earth. This indicated a magma buildup below the surface, and the first minor event that would lead to one of the greatest eruptions the US has ever known. Following the first set of earthquakes, “Steam explosions blasted a 60- to 75-m (200- to 250-ft) wide crater through the volcano 's summit ice cap and covered the snow-clad southeast sector with dark ash. Within a week the crater had grown to about 400 m (1,300 ft) in diameter and two giant crack systems crossed the entire summit area. Eruptions occurred on average from …show more content…
Helens tallied up to be the most deadly and destructive eruption the United States had ever seen. “Approximately fifty-seven people were killed directly from the blast and 200 houses, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways and 185 miles (298 km) of highway were destroyed; two people were killed indirectly in accidents that resulted from poor visibility, and two more suffered fatal heart attacks from shoveling ash (Wikipedia 3)”. Just when it seemed the nightmare was over a second eruption occurred the following day. A quarter of the lava was fresh, and included ash, pumice, and volcanic bombs, and the rest was older molten rock. “The removal of the north side of the mountain (13% of the cone 's volume) reduced Mount St. Helens ' height by about 1,280 feet (390 m) and left a crater 1 to 2 miles (2 to 3 km) wide and 2,100 feet (640 m) deep with its north end open in a huge breach (Wikipedia 3)”. The downwind of the eruption also destroyed many agricultural crops such as wheat, apples, potatoes, and alfalfa. Overall Mount St. Helens was a major blow that cost the US 1.1 billion dollars, and struck fear into the hearts of all of America on May 18th,
In March 18, 1880 Mount St. Helens there was a catastrophic eruption that caused a huge volume of ash; the ash plume would be over central Colorado within 16 hours. After years of dedicated monitoring (knowing where to volcano is, unlike an earthquake not knowing exactly where this geological even is exactly) there was been increasing accuracy in forecasting eruptions.
So what events led up to this violent eruption? A scientist used qualitative and quantitative data to reconstruct a timeline. Three years prior to the April 1815 years the volcano began to rumble and generate a dark cloud around the summit. Then in the early evening of April 5th 1815 there was a moderate-sized eruption. The detonations sounded like the discharge of cannons and could be heard as far away as Ternate, 1400km away (Stothers, 1984). A man by the name of Sir Stamford Raffles heard these sounds wrote:
Lassen Peak and Mount St. Helens are the only two volcanoes in the contiguous United States to erupt during the 20th century.
...815 eruption of Mount Tambora. With over 70,000 deaths and a rating of 7 on the volcanic exclusivity index, this eruption is one of the largest in recorded history. Not only did this volcano cause destruction in Indonesia but the consequences were further felt around the world, as volcanic ash and sulphuric gases were dumped into the stratosphere causing a global climate shift. Dark clouds covered the sun, and dramatic weather changes ensued. Flash floods frequently occurred wiping out a great deal of crop eventually causing prices to skyrocket. Disease began to spread due to malnourishment and unsanitary living conditions. Eventually these consequences subsided and citizens began to migrate towards Mount Tambora once again. Today the government has placed seismic sensors are set up in the most volatile areas to ensure preparedness in the event of another volcano.
Helens is located in Skamania County, Washington at a latitude and longitude 46°11′28″N 122°11′40″W. Mt. St. Helens is a stratovolcano volcano that has an elevation of 2,549m (8363 ft.). The last eruption was 36 years ago and has erupted numerous times within the last 100 years. The eruptions are explosive with ash and pyroclastic flows. Mt. Helens erupted on May 15, 1980 with a VEI 5 rating. It was the only large eruption to happen in the contiguous 48 states since 1915. Fifty-seven people were kill, along with several farm animals. Two hundred miles of land and trees were obliterated. This area is now called the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic
The first time I saw Mt. Rainier for myself, was last summer when my boyfriend and I drove to Washington. It was the most beautiful, peaceful looking mountain I have ever seen. However, underneath it's great beauty, it hides a deadly secret. Mt. Rainier is one of the most dangerous volcanoes that we have here in the United States. One of the reasons it is so dangerous is because of it's great beauty. People enjoy looking at it, and the area that surrounds it, so they have made their homes here. Mt Rainier is not the only volcano I am interested in, in fact this last summer I also went to Mt. St. Helens and Crater Lake. But it is the volcano I chose to research for this paper because it does have so much beauty and at the same time so much power. I already know the basics about volcanoes, how they form, the different types, etc., but I wanted to find out more about what would happen if this great volcano were to erupt, what type of eruption would it be, and how would it affect the people that live around it.
Mount Rainier is a national park located in in Washington. It became a national park on March 2, 1899 by President William McKinley. The terrain that you will find in Mount Rainier is 25 glaciers, snowfields, 9 watersheds, prehistory deposits, 382 lakes, 470 rivers, and 3,000 acres of other types of wetland. Out of Mount Rainier’s 236, 381 acres, 53% is forested, 23% is highland, and 19% is alpine-half vegetated and half permanent snow and ice. The kind of wildlife that you will find there are 65 mammal species, 182 bird species (many migrating in the winter), 14 native fish, 14 amphibian species, 5 reptile species, insects, worms, spiders, crustaceans. And Ealk and black bear are visible in the summer. Some interesting facts on Mount Rainier
Do you think that the Providence Canyon in Georgia should be established as a national park? Various amounts of people have been contemplating this topic and have been asking the question, "Why should we establish this canyon as a national park?" A few reasons are that there is unique wildlife that people may not see everyday, it is very educational, and the tourism will result in an economic boost. The Providence Canyon is located in southwest Georgia and was formed around the 1930s after its dense forest was cut down for farmers to plant their crops. When this canyon was first formed, multiple families would gather their lunches and have a picnic at the spots that overlooked the landscape of the new Providence Canyon. After a while, this land form came to be known as 'Little Grand Canyon' by the current residents of Georgia.
MILLER, C. D. POTENTIAL HAZARDS FROM FUTURE ERUPTIONS IN THE VICINITY OF MOUNT SHASTAVOLCANO, NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. N.p.: US Government Printing Office, 1980. Print.
The eruption on Mount Saint Helens has a specific cause and comes with many effects. A multifold of people would say that the “mountain looked like the site of an atomic blast” (Bredeson 30). That is a very accurate depiction as it took great power to inflict as much damage as it did. The reason for this impressive amount of force is that when magma is built up with pressure and an earthquake hits, the pressure gets magnified and the volcano explodes (Lewis). This is exactly what happened inside Mount Saint Helens. Furthermore, it has been revealed that “The earthquake that triggered the explosion was a 5.2 on the Richter scale” (Gunn 559). The earthquake to the magma can be compared as a match to gasoline. Even though the earthquake was not huge, the scale of the eruption was much greater than that of the earthquake (Gunn 560). The earthquake was only the trigger that allowed for more devastating things to occur. Thirteen hundred feet of the volcano were lost in the explosion followed by landslides, mudslides, and lava flows...
Deep within the Washington wilderness in the shadows of Mount St. Helen lies the infamous Ape Canyon. Upon these steep shallow cliffs, strange encounters have emerged over the past century. In 1924 a group of seasoned miners set out on a routine expedition searching for gold. However, what they encountered changed their lives forever. It was here that allegedly famous attack by a group of sasquatches occurred. In the short autobiography, I Fought the Apemen of Mt. St. Helens by Fred Beck, one of the miners, recollects his parties encounter with the beast.
Mount St. Helens is an active stratovalcano in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located 96 miles south of Seattle and 53 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. The mountain is part of the Cascade Range. It is most famous for a catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980. That eruption was the most deadly and economically destructive volcanic eruption in the history of the United States. 57 people were killed, and 200 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles (24 km) of railways and 185 miles (300 km) of highway were destroyed. The eruption blew the top of the mountain off, reducing its summit from 9,677 feet to 8,364 feet in elevation and replacing it with a mile-wide horeshoeshaped crater.
These differences are in the makeup of the volcano, the impact on society, and the eruption itself. Mount Saint Helens, used to be a wonder of the world, but now a damage site of what happened on May 18, 1980. Mauna Loa is a tourist destination and one of the most active dispensers of lava and magma in the world. As shown, these volcanoes can’t be more different. Yet, each volcano has been a culprit to destruction, and have similarities within themselves. This report has expressed many similarities and differences and brought facts and knowledge to the historical eruptions by these impressive and ancient structures of
It is known however that lying underneath one of America's areas of great natural beauty, Yellowstone Park, lays one of the largest super volcanoes in the world. Scientists have discovered that it has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago, therefore this shows the next eruption is late and could erupt at any moment. Scientists know that the collision of a Yellowstone eruption is terrifying to understand.
1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens and the 1991 eruption Mt. Pinatubo. (Ball, J. n.d.).