Volcano! Tips

Active volcanoes

The total number of known active volcanoes is 850. The largest eruption in the United States was Mt. Saint Helens in Washington state. On May 18th, 1980 a blast 500 times greater than the 20 kiloton atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima, broke out the whole north side of the mountain. An avalanche of lava flowed out at a speed of 250 mph, destroying 100 square miles of forests. 66 persons died or were missing.

On November, 13, 1985, the long dormant volcano Nevada del Ruiz erupted. The volcano sent a steaming, mile-wide avalanche of grey ash and mud down the mountain, burying the town of Amero, near Bogata, Columbia. The 50-foot high wall of molten lava, melted snow and mud traveled about 30 miles an hour down the mountain, depositing a layer of mud and ash 15 feet thick, entombing most of its 23,000 victims. The volcanic eruption was roughly equivalent to the A.D. 79 explosion of Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. At the time of this volcano, Latin America was still painfully coping with the aftermath of the Mexico City earthquake, occurring just eight weeks previous, which claimed 10,000 lives.

Right now, we are anxiously watching the other volcanic mountains in the "ring of fire". Those would be Mt. Hood, Oregon and Mt. Adams in Washington state.
Long dormant, there has been significant seismic activity recently in the form of earthquakes.

The Sierra mountains, which are fairly new in geological terms, is very active. This activity centers mainly around the area of Yosemite and the Mammoth Lakes ski areas to the south. You can see evidence of this by the amount of seismic activity and the unsual amount of hot springs in the area. Several geologists have warned that in the not so distant future this activity will increase and the chance of a volcanic eruption is eminient.

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