The Eruption and its impacts In November 1985, one of the most catastrophic eruptions took place to rewrite the history of natural disasters. It was a volcanic eruption that took place in northern Colombia in Nevado Del Ruiz which took many lives. Over 23,000 people were killed and caused mostly due to a large mud flow which “swept through the town of Armero.” [4] These mud flows is what geologists call “lahars”; the word comes from the Indonesian term for “hot or cold mixture of water and rock fragments.”[3] Lahars are quite dangerous because it grows exponentially in size due to the snowball effect; it grows larger in volume as it accumulates water, rocks, soil, vegetation, buildings etc. It picks up anything in its way which causes makes it quite deadly. [3] The eruption itself was not a large one per se, yet it caused “one of the greatest natural disasters in history.”[4] The reason why it was so deadly was because there was an enormous glacier at the top of the Ruiz summit. The glacier was what caused the abundance of lahar to flow …show more content…
Upon reflection • To what extent was the tragedy at Armero avoidable? Most of the tragedy at Armero could have been avoided if there was a better plan and procedure to follow in the case of volcanic eruptions. By having monitoring instruments, the seismic activities should have been analyzed on a daily basis to see any unusual activities. Also, a risk map should be given to all the citizens of the city’s that would be affected from this eruption. For the post-eruption, all kinds of aid from different countries should be accepted as much as they can to accelerate the progress and to help save as many lives as possible. If all of this was done in a well-fashioned manner, the tragedy at Armero could have been reduced, in terms of the damage caused and the lives
Let’s begin with a little knowledge of Mt. Rainier and Yellowstone. Well, they are both in Washington. Rainier’s last few eruptions had lahars; we know this because of previous paths of destruction. This volcano is dormant, just blowing off a little steam sometimes. The last lahar was 500 years ago. If that happened again,
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:
On May 22, 1915, an explosive eruption at Lassen Peak devastated nearby areas and rained volcanic ash farther 200 miles to the east! This explosion was the most powerful in a series of eruptions from 1914 through 1917. ...
Mount Rainier is a volcano that is located in the Cascade Range in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington. This volcano is 14,411 feet (4,392 meters) in its elevation. This is the highest mountain in Washington. This volcano is in the same mountain range as Mount Adams, Mount Baker, Mount St. Helens and Glacier Peak. It is known as a stratovolcano which is a large, steep volcano built up of alternating layers of lava and ash or cinders. This volcano is an active volcano and the last time it erupted was in 1894. The largest eruption this volcano has had was 2200 years ago. It has been recorded that the areas has had a lot of small high-frequency earthquakes. Some of them occur daily. According to geologist the cause of this is hot fluids moving inside the mountain. It is composed of two overlapping volcano crater that are 1000 ft. around. This volcano has three different summits; they are Columbia Crest, Point Success and Liberty cap, the highest which is 14,411 feet and the lowest which is 14,112 feet. It lies on the Juan de Fuca Plate. This is a divergent boundary. It was formed by the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate and the North American Plate. This volcano also has lahars which are large mudflows that happen in the deposits of sediments that surrounds volcanoes; they can be hot or cold. This volcano includes but not limited to the rock andesite.
Volcanoes have always been a mysterious wonder of the world. Volcanoes have shaped the landscape and the very ground that we all live on. People have written stories of their disastrous eruptions, and painted their marvelous shapes on canvas. The essay will outline some of the more famous volcanoes and how they have impacted are history. Mount Vesuvius that destroy the great city of Pompeii, Krakatoa they spewed deadly ash on small village town, and Mount St. Helen, the only volcano in my own country to every erupt during my own time period.
The article lists volcanoes that have erupted and when they did so. Throughout the article there are pictures of volcanoes and the corresponding text shows what is being done to monitor them. The focus of the piece is the danger to Seattle and Tacoma posed by Mt. Rainier. The sand is rainy. There is an illustration of the danger zones of Mt. Rainier when it goes off and the towns that would be destroyed by it.
There are forty-two volcanoes in Mexico. Mexico’s volcanoes are on the North American Continental tectonic plate. Out of all the volcanoes the three most active are Popocatepetl, El Chichon, and Colima. El Chichon had its last eruption in 1982. No one living near this mountain saw it coming because its last eruption was one hundred and thirty years earlier and was minor. They also ignored the earthquake on the night of March twenty-eighth. But in the morning no one could miss the ash and debris in the air. Most of the two thousand people that died, died from breathing in the harmful gases. It cooled the whole earth the following year. When it erupted in 1982 it created a three hundred meter deep crater. Before the eruption in 1982 El Chichon
Although volcanoes are difficult to predict, geologists have made many efforts in order to caution the people of Orting and other surrounding towns of possible lahar slides. Residents have been made aware of emergency response plans and they know the proper precautions to take in the case of a volcanic activity emergency. Sirens have been put in place by the fire department and governing bodies of surrounding communities to detect volcanic activity and warn the community of possible slides.... ... middle of paper ...
Boom! A once ice-capped mountain peak explodes as ash fills the air. “‘Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it!’”Those were the last words of expert geologist David Johnston (Gunn 561). In 1980, Mount Saint Helens of the state of Washington erupted, filling the air with ash and causing mudflows powerful enough to lift tons. It decimated everything in its path. The eruptions, mudflows, and ash caused great damage on the landscape, yet it gave us information on how catastrophes happen and how they affect society and the surrounding landscape. The data acquired can also help us understand the way the landscape was formed. Mount Saint Helens caused much damage, but also helped people understand the science behind it.
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
El Salvador, 6 April 1992--Three siblings died near the Guazapa volcano last weekend when they stepped on a mine planted during the period of civil warfare. Ironically, their parents had returned to the area only a few days earlier. The children were four, six and eight years old. Parts from the three children's bodies were found as far as 30 metres from the explosion site. (qtd. in Grant 25)
Volcanoes are one of the most destructive forces on Earth. It is estimated that some 500 million people live near active volcanoes (Lutgens and Tarbuck, 2013). Of the Earth's known volcanoes, 70 are expected to erupt each year with at least one large eruption each decade (Lutgens & Tarbuck, 2013). As populations continue to increase and more people are attracted to the beauty surrounding these areas, the immediate threat to humans from these sometimes sleeping giants grows. Due to this, the study of volcanoes and the service that volcanologists provide to the public by way of information and predictions on activity is immeasurable.
channel migration, the eruption of a volcano, the drying of a lake, or the destruction of a
Volcanoes are formed when magma is expelled from the Earth’s surface, resulting in volcanic eruptions consisting of ash and lava. Over time, the lava cools and forms into rock on the Earth’s surface. Whenever an eruption occurs, the newly-formed rock from the lava layers continuously until the volcano takes its shape. Volcanic eruptions have taken place for thousands of years, and even today, according to the U.S Geological Survey (2010), there are approximately 1500 active volcanoes located throughout the world.