Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
Name
Professor
Course
Date
Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
The Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
The eruption of Mount St. Helene occurred on may 18th 1980.
An earthquake struck below northern face of Mount St. Helens triggering a large landslide that caused a major volcanic eruption that scattered a lot of ash across a dozen states (Ayris, 2014).
The blast sent several shockwaves and some pyroclastic flows to the surrounding landscape.
The ash resulted to the flattening of forests, melting ice and snow and generated massive mudflows.
Historical Context of the Eruption
The eruption caused a death f a total of 58 people.
The steam explosion and the opening of the crater occurred at the mountain peak where ash vented out of the crater repeatedly.
A bulge on the north side of the mountain continued to grow larger and larger which grew to about six feet in a day (Pierson & Wood, 2014).
The magma rose inside the mountain.
Many sounds and shock waves shot up straight up to heaven.
Historical Context of the Eruption
Hot gases and other pulverized pieces of the mountain blasted to the north and swept the ground at 300mph.
All the vegetation and trees vaporized at a distance of six miles radius to the north of the Mountain.
The main vegetation killed was the Douglas Firs (Riker, Blundy & Rust , 2015). The other old growth trees were picked and thrown to over 1500 ridges away.
All the rock debris, ice and the snow at the mountain top rushed at 200 mph over a portion of the blast area.
Historical Context of the Eruption
The debris landslide flowed towards the northwest and followed River Toutle.
After the eruption, Mount Helene dropped from being the fifth highest Mountain in Washington and became the 30th highest mountain (Ayris, 2014).
The southern side lost about 1314 feet while the northern side lost around 2900 feet.
The Volcano therefore left a great crater more than a square mile.
The ash plume also roared outside the top of the mountain reaching to a height of 15 miles above the mountain.
Social Context of the Eruption
Prevailing winds led to the blowing of some dense clouds of some black ashes to the eastern side of the mountain.
The black ash from the eastern part of the mountain blocked the sun and turned the day into some total darkness and crossed the land (Pierson & Wood, 2014).
A powdery rain then began to fall out from the clouds towards the countryside.
After an hour the ashes then reached to Yakima that is 60 miles away putting the city into total darkness.
The eruption of the ash also resulted to the roaring of the mountain for around 9 hours.
Social Context of the Eruption
The Ash falls to the cloud routes towards the great plains to about 950 miles from the mountains.
The Ashes also fall to about 10 miles of the mountain which accumulated 10 inches of ash (Ayris, 2014).
The ash clouds took a total of four days to reach to the Eastern coast and a total of 16 days to circumnavigate to the whole world.
Several squares of land were reduced to waste lands.
Small earth-quakes resulted to the formation of avalanches of snow that could be seen from an aerial observation
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
According to a research by Jerry Franklin, the reactions for several people of the remains of the Eruption are a moonscape.
The loss encountered during the eruption resulted to several gains to the ecosystem and towards the progress of the scientific facts.
First, the plants that were not growing under heavy canopies of trees started growing.
Some of these trees had not been able to grow due to predominating predators.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
Some of the tree species were new to this area for instance the Western meadowlark.
The ecosystem got to be more productive compared to those of the previous pre-eruptions of the old-growth forests.
Other lessons for engineering and biology and also regarding atmospheric science began to rise.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
The zoologists were able to study some curious lessons regarding the spiders that were blown into the blast zone.
The volcanologists were also able to engineer some stainless steel which is a smart spider to easily monitor the volcanic activity.
The forest managers easily took notice of the area that was left untouched by the human activities especially after the eruption.
The area resulted to a greater biodiversity than the places that were salvaged by the dead trees.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
The forest managers wanted to grow new trees to the areas left without trees.
Franklin notes that a lot of activities took on to help bring up the area succumbed by the eruptions since it created a new opportunity for the scientists to study.
The volcano also had some impact on the weather.
The volcano produced a hug e volcano dust that was blown to the eastern side by the winds.
The dust caused some slight cooling as the sun went on obscuring .
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
The temperature was also affected by some virtual increases to over 12h.
The thick volcanic clouds resulted to various effects that brought a blanket in the clouds (Riker, Blundy & Rust , 2015).
The cloud also hit Spokane during the day.
To investigate how the clouds influenced the temperatures of the day, we estimated it by the use of different skills by the forecast system.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
In our study, we found that the volcanic caused a cooling in temperature to about 8 degrees Celsius in the eastern Washington DC.
THE COOLING EXTENDED roughly to Idaho borders.
The nearby locations warmed up during the day and the dust spread also during the night.
The volcanic clouds reduced the infrared cooling since the earth radiated through the night and day radiations.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
The clouds caused the temperatures to rise than they would have been.
Temperatures changes due to the volcanic clouds were 8-12 degrees that is warmer in the Western Montana.
The eruptions did not cause any climatic changes.
The reason behind this is that there were little sulfur contents in the air.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
It was important to inject some gas into the stratosphere so as to produce some volcanic hazes that also spread across the entire planet.
The eruption effect had great impacts to the scientific world.
In the first example, the ecology rebounded especially in the morning timing of the eruption.
The spring was late to arrive during that year.
The insects had the ability to parachute in a recovery that was underway.
Impacts of the Eruption of Mt. St. Helens
Secondly, some species still managed to survive despite the eruption.
The others were able to scrap through the edges of the eruption and therefore they were able to crawl back (Ayris, 2014).
According to a study by Rogers, the insects were able to sow seeds after they came back.
The insects were able to fit and still continue to exist today.
Examples of the Analysis From Scientists
Scientists and ecologists have still been watching the whole process of the movements of the insects.
The scientists have still been investigating on the species that were wiped back from the forest (Ayris, 2014).
According to Charlie Crisafulli, the area is a wonderful living laboratory since people are able to investigate of how the ecosystem and all the species respond to the changes.
Examples of the Analysis From Scientists
Crisafulli was able to get several surprises which help in revealing important factors which influence the recovery of the ecosystem.
A good influence on the ecosystem is the devastation widespread which has resulted to the study of other areas that were affected by the eruption.
It is now evident that the eruption resulted to both changes in the ecosystem that had great impact to the scientists.
Examples of the Analysis From Scientists
It is also evident that the eruption resulted to some large mudflow that have led to the reassessment of the hazards of the volcano.
The eruptions have had great impact to the communities since people situated near such volcanoes are able to prepare for future eruptions.
Studies show that such volcanoes can easily be predicated and prevented.
The growth of lava lead to the production of natural laboratories for the experimentation of possible future eruptions.
References
Ayris, P. M., Delmelle, P., Pereira, B., Damby, D. E., Durant, A. J., Maters, E. C., & Dingwell, D. B. (2014, December). Geospatial and statistical analysis of volcanic ash leachate data from Mt. St. Helens. In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts (Vol. 1, p. 4745).
Riker, J. M., Blundy, J. D., Rust, A. C., Botcharnikov, R. E., & Humphreys, M. C. (2015). Experimental phase equilibria of a Mount St. Helens rhyodacite: a framework for interpreting crystallization paths in degassing silicic magmas. Contributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 170(1), 1-22.
Pierson, T. C., Wood, N. J., & Driedger, C. L. (2014). Reducing risk from lahar hazards: concepts, case studies, and roles for scientists. Journal of Applied Volcanology, 3(1), 1-25.
/docProps/thumbnail.jpeg
