Talk:Mount St. Helens

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Article Milestones Date Process Result July 13, 2004 Featured article candidate Promoted November 26, 2006 Featured article review Kept Current Status: Featured article

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Archives Archive 1 (May 2004 to Feb 2006)

Contents 1 A Suggestion 2 A question 3 Why so little people were killed? 4 2006 activity 5 Reduced size of sidetrack 6 Carbon contribution? 7 Why no red lava? 8 Vandalism? 9 Klickitat indian name for Mount St. Helens 10 Mt. St. Helens Erupts Again 12/19/06

[edit] A Suggestion

I would greatly appreciate a new section to your article. The main subject should be volcano protection (How to be protected from Mount Saint Helens...Is it possible to stop Mount Saint Helens fron erupting?...etc.) Emprovision 11:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

• How to be protected: Move to South America. How to stop it from erupting: Put a sock in it. Wahkeenah 23:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A question

Could anyone tell me what record St Helens Holds and why, and What was unique about the eruption and why. Would be appreciated...

Huge123 20:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

From the article, it states that:

The debris avalanche from the 1980 eruption was up to 0.7 cubic miles (2.3 km3) in volume, making it the largest in recorded history.

That's the only "record" that I know of that MSH holds. The article does indicate in the very next sentence that this debris avalanche pales in comparison to ones known to have taken place in geological history. Hope this helps.

Mike 22:05, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

thanks very much

Huge123 14:34, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I think one of the unique things about the eruption, often overlooked, was how accessible it was for the USGS as well as television media, and that its the only volcanic eruption in the 48 contiguous states in modern history. Much larger eruptions on far-off Pacific Islands didn't hold as much interest in the U.S. as one in our own backyard, and I think because of that, and how much more readily the USGS could get personnel and equipment in to study the 1980 eruption of St. Helens brought a lot of breakthroughs to make it easier for scientists to recognize the warning signs about an imminent eruption in a volcano. --Chibiabos 16:41, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why so little people were killed?

why were so little people killed in the 1980 eruption? Huge123 14:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

A combination of reasons ... namely, not many people lived within the blast radius. In fact, most who died were timber workers, scientists and tourists. The lahars cause quite a bit of damage, taking out bridges and roadways, but not a lot of people lived close to the Toutle or Cowlitz rivers. The major nearby metropolitan areas -- Portland, Vancouver, Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle -- were out of reach of most of the eruption's effects, with the exception of ash which itself was limited by the fact the region generally has a good onshore flow (wind blowing inland). A brief offshore flow was enough to blow ash westward and utterly choke I-5, but most of the ash travelled eastward. --Chibiabos 16:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 2006 activity

There appears to be a new story to add here and at 2004 volcanic activity of Mount St. Helens:

• Massive lava 'fin' rises up in Mount St. Helens' crater

There's more info at

• USGS: Mount St. Helens, Washington Eruption 2004 to 2006

but they're awfully vague about everything, referring constantly to "new growths" with little context. I'm not sure what to write, so I'll just leave this note here. Melchoir 01:05, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reduced size of sidetrack

I reduced the paragraph-breaking sidetrack about LARGEST eruption, and made it a shorter parantehtical. I found that the talk about Alaska and such made for an awkward segue to the details of the damage, making it sound like the damage was done in the Alaska eruption. Surely those interested in the other eruption can follow the link.

I also removed the word 'initially' with regard to the native American name. We can't know if that was the initial name, but it was the name used at the time Europeans arrived to record it. It is quite possible that the name changed over time or was totally different during earlier waves of migration.

Paulc206 03:02, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Carbon contribution?

I came looking for info on how much carbon Helens has been releasing with it's new activity. I ended up googling since nothing was here, one newspaper reported between 500-1000 tons a day (as compared to a typical US family contributing 50 tons a year). That's the amount of 5,000 families... Is there some hard reference that could be added? -RJFerret 03:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why no red lava?

Kind of a dumb question, but why wasn't there any red lava when it erupted? The volcanoes in Hawaii spew tons of firey red lava, but this eruption mostly looked like thick black smoke, and mudslides Malamockq 01:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not an expert but I do have an answer to this question. The lava in Hawaii has a very low viscosity (it flows rather freely) and so they produce the now familiar rivers of lava. However, in a volcano like St. Helens the lava is very, very thick and gaseos. It forms plugs and water seeping in from the glaciers meet the hot magma and vaporize into steam, producing the bulge before the eruption and the explosive results of St. Helens and other similar volcanos. -Delphi (sorry I don't have a name here yet)

As I understand it, the reason it has less viscosity in Hawaii is because it has less distance to travel before erupting (and, thus, less time to cool off and is thus hotter) in Hawaii because Hawaii's volcanoes have much lower elevation. --Chibiabos 16:37, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Temperature due to distance traveled has little to nothing to do with it. Chibiabos had most of the answer. The only thing missed is the reason why the lava at St Helens tends to have a higher viscosity and thus tends to trap gas (all lava has lots of gas in it, but freely flowing lava lets it escape easily); it has a higher silica content. The reason for that is the fact that the magma that produced the lava had to travel through and melt continental crust, which has a higher silica content than the oceanic crust that Hawaii's magma must travel through. In fact, the higher silica content makes continental crust lighter than oceanic crust, making it float and rise a bit higher in it not unlike icebergs.

That all said, the picture is more complicated; there have in fact been many red lava flows at St Helens and other stratovolcanoes. The reason? There is not always enough trapped gas in the lava to cause it to explode and turn the lava into super-heated ash and pumice. In fact, there are even some basaltic lava flows on St Helens and some other stratovolcanoes. Those flows tend to follow large eruptions and tend to be from the bottom of the magma chamber (where the heavier magma tends to settle). Even more odd is the fact that many Cascade volcanoes started life as shield volcanoes (the same kind as seen at Hawaii where almost all lava is non-explosive). --mav 15:07, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Because the Hawaii volcanoeos are Hot Spot volcanoes... And what "DELPHIE" said --Mr. Bigely 20:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)"Mr. Bigely"

[edit] Vandalism?

Below the initial introduction and immediately above the table of contents, I see the characters BPC BABY. I can't find them in the edit box to remove them; they look like "graffiti" to me.

I'm a newbie to Wikipedia edits -- can someone delete the phrase, or explain how to do it? Thanks!

[edit] Klickitat indian name for Mount St. Helens

Klickitat indian's called Mount St. Helens Tah-one-lat-clah or "Fire Mountain"

Harris, Stephen L.  Fire mountains of the west : the Cascade and Mono Lake volcanoes / Stephen L. Harris. Missoula, MT : Mountain Press Pub. Co., 2001, c1988. 

The current text reads... The fair Loowit became Mount St. Helens, known to the Klickitats as Louwala-Clough which means "smoking or fire mountain" in their language (the Sahaptin called the mountain Loowit).[7]

The source cited never states that the Klickitat, specifically, called the mountain Louwala-Clough.

Just doing a random web search, I can tell there are conflicting "names" the Klickitat supposedly called the mountain. Does anyone have a definitive answer?

TomDolan 06:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Tom Dolan

The USGS GNIS page on Mount Saint Helens mentions three "Indian" names: Lawala Clough ("smoking mountain"), Low-We-Not-Thlat ("Throwing up smoke") and Low-We-Lat-Klah ("The Smoking Mountain"). Unfortunately, it doesn't say which Indians, and the citation references seem to be blank. There were Indians speaking many different languages in the area, so the USGS is not very helpful in this regard.

But I can't help but point out that the USGS gives the name of the mountain as "Mount Saint Helens" and doesn't even list "Mount St. Helens" or "Mount St Helens" as variants. Searching for those names results in zero matches. Not that I think this articles name ought to be changed, or even that the USGS is always correct and some kind of final authority, just found it interesting. Pfly 04:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the Volcanocam site and check the name at the top. http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/

It is the US Forest Service but links to the USGS site. Look at how they spell the name. http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/CurrentActivity/ Dabbler 15:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mt. St. Helens Erupts Again 12/19/06

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,237578,00.html ~ UBeR 23:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)