Mount St Helens Research Paper

Imagine monitoring hundreds of earthquakes, tremors, avalanches, rockfalls, and ventilation from a mountain that is centuries old. Imagine seeing the visible and statistical evidence of this immense and terrifying natural force growing and shattering its chains exponentially. You know that this mountain will destroy everything in its path at once, without hesitation. It will strip life from the very earth it was created from without a blink of an eye and it will gladly strip the breath from your lungs. Imagine holding the lives of hundreds of people in the palm of your hands; knowing that one wrong read of the data collected, one wrong interpretation could mean the difference between life and death for those farther down the mountain. Yet even

Helens at an observation station near the mountain. A 5.1 magnitude earthquake hit the mountain and Johnston sent his last message and last recorded words to the base “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!” He died two minutes later in the massive explosion. On May 18th, 1980 at 8:32 am that earthquake caused a debris avalanche which took out the entire north side of the volcano. Mount St Helens erupted covering approximately two hundred thirty square miles of volcanic material and debris. The ash from the volcano billowed 16 miles high five hundred degrees Celsius. The power of this enormous blast was determined to be approximately five hundred times more powerful than the atomic bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima by the United States in 1945. After the mountain exploded lahars---volcanic mudflows---filled the three surrounding rivers resulting in massive floods. The toxic volcanic material destroyed the wildlife of the three rivers near the mountain, the most damage was done to the Toutle River. This massive explosion destroyed over two hundred homes, burned the surrounding forests to the ground, and killed over seven thousand animals. The Mount St. Helens eruption took the lives of fifty-seven people through thermal injuries, asphyxiation, debris, and trauma of the experience. The Federal and State governments estimated the damage caused by the eruption to be about 1 billion dollars; this estimate

In March the earthquakes increased in magnitude and frequency which resulted in the movement of magma underneath the volcano and the steam venting from the volcano. It began with approximately one hundred and seventy-four earthquakes that ranged from 2.6 and above. By the end of March, the magnitude of the earthquakes increased to 4.2 and averaged about three earthquakes per day. April brought a new set of concerns as the earthquakes continued to increase in both magnitude and frequency and the north side of the mountain visibly began to expand. Visible cracks, avalanches, and rockfalls were detected and interpreted of telltale signs of an approaching eruption of a large magnitude. A week before the May 18th eruption the earthquakes averaged eight per day at a magnitude of greater than