Mount St Helens predicted to explode
4 October 2004
by Richard
Conan-Davies
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Geologists from the US Geological Survey are predicting a large eruption at the volcano Mount St Helens. The current smaller explosions are the largest since a massive eruption that blew up most of the mountain back in 1980. This type of volcano is called a strato volcano and tends to produce very violent explosions. This is due to very thick (viscous) lava building up slowly below the mountain, then cooling, hardening and acting as a plug . The lava builds up very high carbondioxide gas pressure over many years and then results in a giant explosion. Geologists have been measuring the current activity of Mount St Helens and are pretty sure that the next explosion is going to be very large. But volcanoes like this are very hard to predict exactly when they explode. This is because these volcanoes build up in a slightly messy way. These kinds of volcanoes are also very common around the pacific rim. Knowing more about such volcanoes will help scientists predict them better and perhaps save lives. |
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