October 02, 2004
Mount St. Helens shakes again
And now, an entertainment post, while I wait for the rain to stop and go out to run a little.
Mount St. Helens, a famous volcano in the Washington State (north-west of the USA), spewed a quite impressive plume of steam and ashes yesterday 1 October. The whole phenomenon lasted less than 30 minutes, but was quite spectacular. According to some reports, the plume rised up to about 5000 m. However, it's just a minuscule burp on a volcanic scale. All this after a ten days of intesifying seisimic activit, which corresponds to magma movements and pressure buildup inside the mountain, that might cause other eruptions soon.
Nothing like the catastrophic 1980 eruption, which released several megatons of energy and devastated an area nearly 30 km wide at 20 km distance. Debris avalanche and lahars (almost-liquid mud flowing rapidly downstream) followed later, causing total destruction in a wide area.
Mount St. Helens, a famous volcano in the Washington State (north-west of the USA), spewed a quite impressive plume of steam and ashes yesterday 1 October. The whole phenomenon lasted less than 30 minutes, but was quite spectacular. According to some reports, the plume rised up to about 5000 m. However, it's just a minuscule burp on a volcanic scale. All this after a ten days of intesifying seisimic activit, which corresponds to magma movements and pressure buildup inside the mountain, that might cause other eruptions soon.
Nothing like the catastrophic 1980 eruption, which released several megatons of energy and devastated an area nearly 30 km wide at 20 km distance. Debris avalanche and lahars (almost-liquid mud flowing rapidly downstream) followed later, causing total destruction in a wide area.
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