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Mt. St. Helens Magma Reaches Surface

daquake writes "Volcanic rock has flowed to the surface of Mount St. Helens' crater, creating a new lava dome after weeks of seismic activity, the bulge had risen at least 330 feet since scientists noticed it September 30. Geologists said there is still a chance of explosive ash eruptions from the 8,364-foot mountain, and the immediate area around the volcano remained closed."

7 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. plagiarism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm sure I've read this somewhere before. And for once it isn't a previous slashdot article.

    If you're going to copy verbatim, credit your source.

  2. why by wikinerd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I wonder why people continue building cities and towns close to volcanoes or places with high earthquake risk.

    1. Re:why by cranos · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The soil. After a while the ash and lava breaks down into some of the most nutrient rich soil on the planet. Crops grow at record pace and so on and so forth.

  3. Re:Ignore the Kyoto Accord at your own peril... by CGP314 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Senate voted against it 99-1. No one supported it.

    There are other countries you know, like Canada, People's Republic of China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and all of the European Union.


    -Colin

  4. Re:Ignore the Kyoto Accord at your own peril... by Vellmont · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because it's a good idea? Because we need to start doing something about C02 emmisions as change on that large a scale takes a decade to implement?

    Maybe Kyoto was too big a step to take at once (though I have my doubts about that) but the big problem is the Bush administration wants to ignore the problem entirely.

    --
    AccountKiller
  5. Re:Clarification by WhiteBandit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There seems to be a little confusion among those who didn't actually read the article, so I might as well waste a few seconds:

    There is no lava actually coming out visibly. When they say there is magma at the surface, the geologists really mean it's just below the surface. I guess the point of the article is that this is new growth inside the lava dome, as opposed to lava deep down pushing up the whole dome from beneath. Microsoft is still safe baring any truly cool explosions and there's really no danger of forest fires. Any lava would have a lot of crater filling to do before it spilled over the north face. Plus I read somewhere that the lava tends to come out of Mt. St. Helens pretty viscous (thick crust?) so it doesn't flow well anyways.


    Yeah, the magma below the Cascade ranges have quite a high silica content. The higher the silica content, the more viscous the lava is, as well as more explosive.

    So any magma that does reach the surface will be extremely viscous, not move very far and be quite irregular as it cools. Most likely, it will form a type of volcanic rock called rhyolite or dacite, rather than basalt, which is what people usually associate with lava flows (and is the stuff produced from low silica content eruptions, such as the Hawaiian Islands).

  6. Re:Farewell by It'sYerMam · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, it wasn't very funny, speaking as a Brit. You might want to remember that "hideous, unlikeable" is insult, not comedy, and that Americans are just Brits on an extended holiday.
    This appears to be something those still living here regret - I don't wonder why when someone starts insulting us for correct, British spelling.

    --
    im in ur .sig, writin ur memes.