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The power of volcanic eruptions is hard to imagine, but let’s try.
Imagine living in Australia and hearing a volcano erupting 2,400 miles away in Indonesia. Imagine looking through your camera and seeing the summit of Mount St. Helens disappear. Imagine piloting a jetliner and having volcanic dust stall all four of your engines. Volcanoes are among the most awesome forces in nature. Discover for yourself some of the world’s most famous volcanoes.
▲ A prisoner on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean was one of two survivors of the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée. The thick walls of his jail cell protected Auguste Ciparis from the eruption that killed 28,000 other people. Ciparis was badly burned but was rescued after four days.
◀ Poisonous gases from the eruption of Iceland’s Mount Laki more than 230 years ago killed grass that cows and sheep needed for food. Without meat and milk, many people died.
▲ Some volcanoes can be dangerous even if they are not erupting. In 1986, a cloud of carbon dioxide killed 1,700 people, as well as cows and other animals, in Cameroon in Africa. Nearby Lake Nyos, which fills a volcanic crater, was the source of the gas. Over hundreds of years, carbon dioxide seeped up from the volcano into Lake Nyos. No one really knows what happened to make the gas get released into the air.
◀ Benjamin Franklin was the first scientist to suggest that volcanoes can change climate. He linked Europe’s cold winter of 1784 with the fog from Mount Laki’s eruption. The fog may have blocked enough sunlight to cause the cold weather.
◀ Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted in June 1991, releasing a huge amount of ash. The ash from the volcano was so thick that people had to drive with their car headlights on during the day. Gas clouds from the volcano lowered temperatures around the world.
Although it wasn’t large, the 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia was hot enough to trigger a mudflow. Melting snow and ice killed 20,000 people. ▶
◀ The 1883 eruption of Krakatau in Indonesia was one of the largest natural explosions in history. It sent rock and ash into the sea, which produced huge sea waves called tsunamis (tsoo-NAM-eez).
▲ The parting of the Red Sea, when Moses and the Jewish people fled from Egypt, is described in the Old Testament of the Bible. It may have been caused by a tsunami.
Mount St. Helens
▲ Before its eruption on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens was a perfectly shaped stratovolcano. It had been built by many eruptions over 40,000 years. The 1980 eruption tore 1,300 feet off the mountain’s top and left the crater shaped like a horseshoe.
▲ Forests were leveled by rock blasted from the mountain at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour. Despite the destruction, plants started growing on the mountainside again in a few months.
◀ The volcano’s heat melted snow and ice, causing thick, smelly mud to flow down the North Toutle River Valley below it. The mud swept through houses and carried off cars.
▲ This 1847 painting shows Flathead Indians watching an 1842 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The Indians called the volcano Fire Mountain.
