A Mount Saint Helens Story essays

A Mount Saint Helens Story essays I went to the mountain with the expectation of seeing firsthand, the explosive remains of a tragic, destructive, volcanic eruption. This turned out to be just the beginning of an extraordinary, educational experience that made me want to learn more. The 1980 eruption on Mount Saint Helens remains the most powerful and most documented explosion in U. S. history. When Mount Saint Helens erupted, 57 people lost their lives. Death was instantaneous for those close to the eruption; an entire family found still sitting in their car, a couple found in a tent with their arms around each other, and several other bodies were never located. Destruction was widespread; old-growth forests were leveled, floods raged, and ash circled the globe. The Cowlitz Indians that reside in the area call the mountain Lawetlia, or smoking mountain. An alpine lake with crystal clear water is at the mountains base. The Cowlitz Indians named it Spirit Lake, because they believe the region belongs to the dead. Certainly the Cowlitz Indians knew of the mountains previous eruption in1837. They knew to listen to the earth and at 8:32 AM on Sunday May 18, 1980, the rest of the world learned to listen, as the mountain came to life again. The eruption completely transformed the cone-shaped peak of Mount Saint Helens, melting city-sized glaciers in seconds, and destroying everything for 19 miles to the northwest. After months of rumblings, Mount Saint Helens has since settled into a slumber, though this may be a fitful sleep. In 1995, U.S. Geological Survey scientists released a study saying, Sufficient time has elapsed for the magma, the liquid and molten rock in the conduit beneath the dome to crystallize and form a plug. The pressure needed to expel the plug could produce an explosion similar in size to the 1980 eruption (Campbell and Barber. Th ...