Mount St. Helens
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mount St. Helens is a volcano in the U.S. state of Washington, 96 miles (154 km) south of Seattle and 53 miles (85 km) northeast of Portland, Oregon.
It is most famous for the volcanic eruption on May 18, 1980. In 1982, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the United States Congress established the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, a 110,000 acre (445 km2) area around the mountain that is also in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. During this eruption, ash was hurled into the air over 15 miles above sea level. Although only 57 people were killed, thousands of elk and deer were killed and over a million fish died. Due to the mud flows caused by the eruption, many bridges were destroyed and roads ruined.
The mountain is part of the Cascade Range of mountains and was first called Louwala-Clough, which means "smoking" or "fire mountain" in the language of the native Klickitat people.
the strange thing about the eruption was the fact it released the debris from the side of the volcano, as rock blocked the casual release point. this caused the debris to go much further in one direction, but only excess ash reched the other side. (the debris raced at the high speed of 700 mph when it erupted!)
[edit] See also
- Mount Rainier
- Mount Baker
- Mount Adams
- Glacier Peak
- Mount Hood
- Mount Shasta
- Crater Lake
- Lassen Peak
[edit] External links
- Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument website from the U.S. Forest Service
- Mount St. Helens picture and current status from the United States Geological Survey website
- The VolcanoCam Live camera from the U.S. Forest Service
- Maps and pictures from above
- Land map from TopoZone
- Picture from above from TerraServer-USA
- Area map from Google Maps
- Map of where it is in the United States from the Census Bureau
