Mount St. Helens
Monday, 11th April 2005 by Alex Turnbull
It hasn't erupted since 1980 March 2005, but apparently Mount St Helens still counts as an active volcano. Not great resolution here yet though.
Thanks: Sean Miller, kb and others.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
It erupted last month.
hehe http://katu.com/stories/75565.html
Well, good thing I didn’t go and see it for real then huh? 😉 Cheers Sean, fixed.
Well, in this picture, it hadn’t errupted since 1980. So it looks different now.
All the volcanos of the cascade range are active, even those who haven’t blown for hundreads of years
Mt. St. Helens is part of the “ring of fire” which circles the pacific ocean, one of the reasons I have never been keen on the idea of living on the West Coast.
Worse yet, as I understand it, downtown Seattle is built essentially on a mud flat over rock so that if an eruption were catestrophic, the whole downtown area could theoretically go sliding into the ocean, bus tunnel and all.
Course, I could be wrong about that.
However, having just let off steam twice in the last 25 years, its probably a lot less likely that that kind of pressure is building up along those mountains.
I still don’t want to live out there though.
Peter The Peter Files Blog of Comedy and Satire
Despite its fearsome history, the volcano does make for a great tourist visit. Once you enter Mt. St. Helens Nat’l Park, it’s just a short hour-long drive to the visitor’s centers (the route is on a menacing little road that takes you on narrow cliffs up to 3800 feet abouve the ground, often with no guardrails). The nearest visitor’s center to the volcano is Johnson Ridge, the large ridge north of the volcano.
I can offer you photos that I took while I was there… while at theJohnson Ridge center I made four wide shots to make a panorama of the volcano, complete with Japanese tourists. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v80/lordsmiloid/seattle/mtsthelensfullpanoramasmall.jpg Note that it’s always foggy there… it was clear enough to see the mountain for maybe two minutes.
The volcano has let off steam several times, but it has only had large eruptions twice in recent times: the 1988 eruptin and May of this year. There is a large lava dome inside the volcano’s cone; the scientists and geologists are observing this dome closely, since it grows several feet each day and is the best indicator of the volcano’s development.