Volcano tour destination

The volcano site we will be visiting today is one of the most famous recent eruptions in North America. This volcano was on the watch list a couple of times in the last 3 years. We will be visiting Mount St. Helens located on the Pacific Northwest of the United States. This volcano is Skamania County, Washington. I recently had the opportunity to fly into the Seattle airport and witnessed this great volcano in all its grandeur. It’s located about 100 miles south of Seattle and just 53 miles north of Oregon.

This Volcano is currently in an active status, meaning that it could erupt at any time. This volcano has a lava dome that is warm and steaming. There was concern recently that Mount St. Helens was due for another eruption. Television and news teams recently reporting that the lava dome is continuing to increase in size. It was about 3 years ago that the volcano started to awaken with some seismic activity. It would be interesting to witness Mount St. Helens erupt but of course we would like to do this from afar.

Mount St. Helens is most famous for the large eruption in 1980. It was a Sunday morning, at 8:32 on May 18th that it last erupted. This was one of the most deadly and economically impactful eruptions in the United States history. The eruption lasted almost 6 weeks with continuous ash and steam being launched into the air. I don’t believe it was a surprise concerning this eruption. Many weeks ahead of the eruption the volcano began to bulge with increased volume of magma forming inside. An earth quake was the tipping point that started the volcano’s eruption. Most of the north side of the volcano slid away creating one of the largest land slides in recorded history. The ash cloud fallout was felt throughout most of the upper states in America, as far west as Minnesota and south as Oklahoma. It was said that the ash plume reached over twelve miles into the air. The speed of this ash cloud was measured to be about 60 miles per hour. In total the eruption killed fifty seven people, damaged many homes, destroyed bridges and roads creating a huge financial impact.

Some additional interesting facts on this volcano are around what was left after the eruption. The original mountain summit height was 9677 feet. After the eruption the new mountain summit height was reduced by 1312 feet, to a new height of 8,365 feet. An additional feature that was left in the wake of the eruption was a large creator where a summit once stood. This creator was over 1 mile long consisting of a shape of a horse shoe.

I wanted to gather the most up to date news for our visit so I gathered the following recent news: (Wikipedia, 2007)
2004 Activity:
“At 12:02 p.m. PDT on October 1, 2004, the mountain threw a plume of steam and volcanic ash about 9,700 feet (about 3 kilometers) into the air (according to pilot reports), from a vent in the unnamed glacier just southwest of the lava dome. The resulting ash plume was reported to have drifted south to Vancouver, Washington and Wood Village, Oregon, dusting cars with a fine layer of black, sooty ash.”

2005 Activity:
“Mount St. Helens had major activity again on March 8, 2005 at about 5:30 p.m. local time, when a 36,000-foot (11 km) plume of steam and presumably ash was witnessed emerging from the volcano, accompanied by a tremor that measured about 2.5 on the Richter scale.”

2006 Activity:
“On December 19, 2006 an eruption sent a steam plume billowing over Washington State.”

Works Cited
Wikipedia. (2007, September 13). 2004 and later volcanic activity of Mount St. Helens. Retrieved September 23, 2007, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_and_later_volcanic_activity_of_Mount_St._Helens