After effects of Mount St Helens eruption - formation of new oil and coal deposits? (more)...?
144412
I live about 50 miles from Mt. St. Helens and can guarantee that no deposits of coal and/or oil have been found because of the 1980 eruption. In the first place, The Pacific Northwest has few if any coal or oil deposits, and to claim that St Helens produced any is a silly notion.
782745
"Are we destroying the earth with technology or is the earth doing business as usual"\nI suggest you track the changes scientists have found in the entire history of the earth, warming, freezing, wet and even effects of smoke from Krakatoa. Then compare what is happening now with pollution and the depletion of the ozone layer and ask the readers to make their own conclusion.
845867
Eruptions have many effects, both good and bad. A major eruption will blow rock, gases and ash into the air. Sometimes melted glacial water mixed with falling debris can cause mudflows in rivers and streams that are capable of sweeping away entire towns. In the short term (the time that the eruption occurs), this can be devastating. Indeed, many living organisms can die, including humans, plants, animals etc., and there can be some economical damage, including destruction of towns or villages, crops, water supplies and food resources. However, in a long period of time, through the force of erosion, volcanic material (particularly ash) will break down. This can form a very rich kind of soil, good for plant growth. Farmers in places near volcanoes can grow an incredible stockpile of good, fresh food because of the good soil.\nLava eruptions are far less dangerous than explosive ones (but lava flows can still pose as a threat). Though a lava flow is very hot and capable of burning anything in its path, it does not move very fast. These lava flows can vary in size, however, and sometimes a flow may destroy some plant life, as well as human settlements. Villages in Hawaii have been burried by lava flows, and there are articles in newspapers that show pictures of houses burning, or abandoned houses half-buried in cooled lava. But, like the explosive eruptions, when lava cools and breaks down over time, it too can form rich soils.\nAsh, an aspect mentioned before, is a volcano's legacy. The ash from a major eruption can travel around the globe in a matter of days. Ash, when seen under a microscope, consists of tiny, sharp particles. These particles can be extremely harmful to the human lungs, or the lungs of any other animal, for that matter. How would you feel if your throat and insides were scratched by miniature, sharp rocks? Ash can also be the opposite of a good soil maker for farmers. If too much ash covers a field, the field is ruined, for the plants will suffocate in the layers of debris. Sometimes, like it was with Mt. St. Helens, ash can pile up on top of roofs of houses, and any roof can cave in from the weight of it (just like snow). \nSo really, volcanoes make up a huge part of Earth in general, and they can have mixed effects on the environment.
844151
I can see Mt. Hood out my window and I haven"t heard of any explosions. We keep a close watch on our volcanoes around here since Mt St. Helens erupted 25 years ago. Mt. Hood will erupt again in the future but hasn't since 1781. Check the link below.
126957
Mt shasta is a stratovolcano and its eruption will probably look something like that of Mt. St. Helens because they form basically by the same process, the subduction of the pacific plate below the North American plate. The lava will be high in silica, which will make it sticky and probably explosive.
220468
The most recent eruption of Fuji (a composite volcano) was in 1707 and contained large amounts of pyroclastic fall. In studies it was determined that, "The magma composition of the eruption varied from beginning to the end of the eruption." a breakdown of the composition is found in this paper online:\n\nMiyaji, Naomichi. The 1707 Eruption of Mt. Fuji Volcano and its Tephra\nhttp://www.airies.or.jp/publication/ger/pdf/06-2-05.pdf\n\nNote: Mt. Fuji is only dormant and may erupt at any time.
1183930
~I assume somewhere in this drivel you actually think you posted a question.  Sorry I was to ignorant to figure out what it was.  Maybe you should consider going back to school to learn how to speak and write in intelligible English.  As to to concept of oil being a renewable resource, of course it is.  It just might take a few million years for the ferns to grow, decompose and transmogrify.  What the hey, Sequoias are renewable too.
1070105
Mt. Etna's eruptions, while obscuring visibility in the area surrounding the volcano, were captured by cameras on board the Terra and SeaWiFs satellites in recent days.\n\nThe eruption opened six vents in the mountain, releasing a cloud of ash stretching southeastward over the Mediterranean Sea, though the volatile mountain's lava flows have appeared to slowed.\n\nA new fissure cracked open at a height of 2,700 yards (2,470 meters) on the eastern side of the volcano, officials told Reuters on Tuesday, weakening the main lava flow that threatened the village of Nicolosi, a community of 5,000 people. \n\nThe magma pouring out of the new fissure, one of a half-dozen that have burst open on the almost 11,000-foot (3,350-meter) mountain, was heading toward the uninhabited Valle del Bove valley. \n\n"There are very slight signals that the eruption activity is diminishing. I am cautiously optimistic,'' said Alberto Di Pace, prefect of Catania, a city at the base of the volcano. \n\nBut experts say the volcano is highly unpredictable, making it extremely difficult to tell whether the eruptions will stop soon. In the past 20 days there have been more than 2,500 tremors under the mountain, with no signs of any let-up. \n\nCatania's international airport, which was shut for a second time on Monday as thick layers of volcanic ash covered the runway, was re-opened at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday. \n\nFor a week, Europe's most active volcano has been billowing huge clouds of smoke and black ash, and spitting rivers of lava, leading the government to declare a state of emergency. \n\nThe lava flow approaching Nicolosi has almost stopped as it pools in a shallow basin some 2.5 miles above the village. \n\nOn Sunday, the community organized a religious procession to pray that the flow be diverted or stopped. \n\nLegend has it that in 1886 the local archbishop managed to divert a wave of boiling magma descending on the village by brandishing before it a statue of Saint Anthony. \n\nThe magma has already damaged ski lifts dotting the volcano's slopes and civil protection teams were trying to save the ones left intact. \n\nMount Etna is a popular winter resort, but tourism officials say snow is unlikely to settle this winter because of the extreme heat of the lava. \n\nThe last time Etna posed a threat was in 1992 when lava streams headed toward Zafferana, a town of 7,000 people on Etna's lower slopes. The Italian military had to use controlled explosions to divert the flow.
20239
Today!\nIf you want to see recent photos, go here:\nhttp://www.volcanogallery.com/volcano_eruption.htm
749900
I actually saw a documentary on this, on the channel "Discovery Civilizations".\n\nBasically, it said the whole area is tectonically unstable and laced with pockets of underground gas.  There was an earthquake, that resulted in liquefaction of the sands, and the entire cities slid right into the sea.  The fires were the result of friction lighting the gas pockets on fire.   \n\nIt would have been horrifying to behold.
717408
Usually there are warning signs that something is happening. Active volcanos such as Mt St Helens are continusly monitored for changes such as increase in earthquake activity, change in the shape of the volcano. Scientists can actually see changes to the shapre of hte volcano by GPS surveys. Like what is happening in the Pacific at teh moment (cant remember the name of the volcano just now) they know something is going to happen, but they cant place a time on it, so they have evacuated hte people. Most people are evacuated before hte volcano blows, but those that have ignored pleas do so at they're own risk. And yes as the dude above me pointed out, by means of a road.
377689
As I recall, this was once a major area of contention.  While coal can clearly (by the presence of plant fossils within it) be shown to come from resinous peat bogs which were altered later by pressure and heat, the origin of petroleum caused problems. While it is possible, within a catalytic cracker, to convert coal into tar (the Nazi war machine used this in WW II. It could be used in the US now, if not for the interference of oil companies (and the EPA).), most naturally occuring petroleum occurs in sandstones & shales, which have little plant materiel in them.  Whiile sandstone & shales are semi-permiable, so the oil could have seeped in and pooled at the bottom of a formation, there is still the problem of a source.  Eventually, it was noticed that foramifera, very small free floating creatures of all non-chlorinated bodies of water, have hard exoskeletons which are the main part of what we call sand (as compared with clay, which is fully digested rock).  Given this, the unimaginably huge numbers of them, and the fact that they have an organic/lipid content, led to the belief that they are the ultimate source of the oil.  It may be that there is also an anoxic biologic process, driven by archeo-bacteria, which consume lighter organics and polymerize them to generate energy for their oxygen-free life processes, which may be considered the source of petroleum.\n\nAs you no doubt know, crude oil is made up of many different organics molecules, some short chain, some long.  An oil refinery takes the mixed organics, heats them, separating them by vaporization and recondensation.  Some of the long chain molecues can be broken up, and this is done in a catalytic cracker, as we generally use more of the short lenght molecules than the long ones.
953282
Just a guess: Because of all the coal around this area, I would suppose that sulfide minerals, especially pyrite (iron sulfide) would be common. Some sphalerite (Zn, Fe sulfide) has been found in Lucerne county. Some rozenite (hydrated Fe sulfate) has been reported from Jeddo Highland coal mine in Hazleton.\n\n"Sulfide minerals typically occur in coal beds as well as in strata overlying and underlying the coal. Weathering and aqueous dissolution of the sulfide mineral oxidation products, including dissociated sulfuric acid and metals (e.g., Fe, Mn, Al), produces surface and groundwater degradation." \nwww.epa.gov/waterscience/ guide/coal/support/support2.pdf\n\n"By far the most serious environmental problem caused by abandoned mines is polluted water. It happens when rain comes into contact with a surface or underground mine and interacts with the mineral pyrite, better known as fools' gold, to form sulfuric acid. The toxic brew discharges into streams and rivers, choking off plants and wildlife and coating streambeds with iron hydroxide, tinting water yellow, red or orange. Aluminum, manganese and other metals also leach into the water.\nOld mining operations have polluted about 4,000 miles, or 5 percent, of the rivers and streams in Pennsylvania, officials estimate. The west branch of the mighty Susquehanna River is dead for its upper 70 miles; 1,000 miles of its tributaries are likewise lifeless. The Jeddo Tunnel, an engineering marvel drilled through miles of solid rock to drain deep mines in the Hazleton area, discharges 40,000 gallons of polluted water a minute into the Little Nescopeck Creek -- the largest such discharge in a state full of them."\nhttp://www.theminingnews.org/news.cfm?newsID=951
43324
What takes the place of the oil depends on the drilling methods used.  Since the 1950's, secondary recovery processes such as hydraulic fracturing or waterflooding have been used to force fluids -into- the underground reseroirs of oil, forcing the oil -out- of the ground.  Thus, the fluids take the place of the oil. These secondary extraction processes allow drillers to extract much more oil from a well than was previously possible.\n\nIt's possible that a connection exists between hydrocarbon extraction and earthquakes (called "induced seismicity"), but there is no scientific concensus or proven "cause and effect" correlation between anthropogenic activity and earthquakes.\n\nI hope you can sleep easier now :)
1089411
You think we are seeing lots of volcanic activity NOW?\n\nRent a copy of Walt Disney's "Fantasia" and watch the part about the early ages of the Earth.\n\nFor millions of years, all this planet DID was erupt.\n\nOf course, your question is tied more to relatively recent times.  The planet seems to pass through periods of greater and lesser volcanic activity.  Much of it is stimulated by movement of the great "tectonic plates" on which our globe is formed.  These are huge chunks of the Earth's crust that slide and bump into one another.  They "float" on top of the more liquid, or molten, components of the Earth's core.\n\nVulcanologists, or specialists in volcanoes, can answer your question with greater precision.  In general, there has been an apparent increase in volcanic activity over the past 40-50 years.  That's how long I've been paying attention, anyhow.  But some of this appearance of activity is a product of remembering volcanic events - a few this year, another one or two some years later, and so on.  Most what I have noticed is that volcanic activity seems to have moved around the world.  Where one volcano goes ka-boom, or squirts out some lava for a time and then goes quiet, later there's a new one doing the same elsewhere.  After a time, it seems there are lava flows everywhere, when in fact there are not.\n\nThe most persistent volcanic activity I can remember is in Hawaii, where for at least 20 years (or so it seems) the Big Island has slowly been growing as a result of constant lava flow.\n\nThe 1800's overall seem to have been far more active in terms of volcanic eruptions and disasters than the past 100 years.  Some of the most horrendous volcanic disasters took place in that century.\n\nWe should remember that ours is not a "quiet" planet, but an ever-active ball of dirt, water and air.  It's an interesting place, eh?
579528
famous 1902 volcanic eruption, most of the damage i seem to remeber being caused by a pyroclastic flow, killed about 27,000 people. I'm not sure if that is a myth or not!
111578
Start with Mount St. Helens