Hard to believe it’s been 35 years since Mt St Helens erupted.In less than 5 minutes 33 million cubic yards of rock and soil were displaced in a massive landslide killing 57 people and extinguishing all life for an area of 270 square miles.The force of the resulting eruption was equivalent to 27,000 Hiroshima sized Atomic bombs releasing an estimated cubic mile of pulverized rock and volcanic ash.-
When Mother Nature decides to redecorate she goes big.
Video here-
https://youtu.be/K5pidzTZslo
And mindful of the scale of the eruption, which historically is not a biggie, some would have you think we are changing the climate by driving here and there and allowing cows to fart.
Yup,the idea that a few tenths of a percent increase in C02 is somehow going to destroy the planet is a witch’s brew of arrogance,ignorance and criminal deception.
As far as the size it certainly was a smaller major eruption,I wonder what will happen if Yellowstone decides to belch.
“Wind farm requires 700 times more land than a Shale gas fracking site”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/energy/fracking/11034270/Wind-farm-needs-700-times-more-land-than-fracking-site.html
I would much rather see a simple 12 foot tall christmas tree valve sticking up than several 300 foot tall “green bird blending crucifixes” as James Delingpole calls them.
Damn right!
In 2011 I finally got the chance to visit Mt St Helens. I drove down from Seattle with my two oldest and it was worth the visit. While the mountain is no bigger than the pile that is Ruapehu it seems bigger because everything else is still flattened around it (except on the South side).
We went to the main observatory, Johnston Ridge, named after the geologist who was killed at that spot while monitoring the volcano. The first thing that threw me was that the gorge in front of the ridge is a good thousand feet deep and steep-sided. Standing on top one actually feels “safe” from what is down far below (herds of deer wandering around too). To think that the eruption simply swept up and over the top of that ridge was sobering. Equally so is the display inside, with many survivors stories on the wall. One couple remembered hearing the strange snapping and crunching sounds of large trees being destroyed as the eruption approached them – “exactly as if a fairy tale giant was striding toward us”: scary shit. Then there was the mounted remains of a tree stump and trunk; the tree is about ten feet in diameter (it fills the room) and the trunk is simply ripped off about ten feet above the floor, with some of the upper left attached and hanging down. You look at that and suddenly understand what a three hundred mph pyroclastic flow means.
I was also awed by one recording of another observer, Gerry Martin, a retired US Navy radio operator. He was a mile or so North of Johnston and reported the whole eruption, starting with the quake that triggered the landslide. There’s a part where he says that the eruption is … now coming up the ridge. I’m gonna back out of here …, and then Gentlemen, the uh… camper and the car sitting over to the south of me is covered. It’s gonna get me, too. I can’t get out of here – all delivered in a calm, matter-of-fact tone that is just spooky to listen to. Two big brass ones.
You can go walking along many trails but we did not quite have that much time. I would have liked to have seen Spirit Lake. But if any of you get the chance, go see it.
Finally, there’s this article on another historic volcano blast in the USA. For all the attention given to St Helens and the Northern group including Mt Rainier, this piece is about the only other Cascade range eruption in living memory, Lassen Peak – in California, which people don’t usually associate with volcanoes. But the old photos show an impressive explosion, and strangely enough it will be the centenary of the eruption in a couple of days time; the mountain exploding on May 22, 1915. Maybe we should keep an extra eye open during the month of May in the Cascades!
Thanks for that, Tom. Fascinating stuff. It’s hard to imagine just how frightening that must have been for the people there.
As you say, two big brass ones….