mount st helen essays

mount st helen essays Mount St. Helen is a volcano located along the cascade range, which is a volcano chain stretching from Northern California to British Columbia. Mount St Helen now stands at a height of 8,364 feet above sea level. Mount St. Helen was one the smaller eruptions of five major ones in Washington State. It's elevation before the eruption was 9,677 feet high. On March 29, 1980 after a period of one-hundred and twenty-three years of inactivity a earthquake under As magma pushed up from beneath the earth's surface, the north side of the mountain developed a bulge. Angle and slope-distance measurements indicating that the bulge was growing at a rate of 1.5 feet per day (thompson pg 23). May 17 the volcano's north side had been pushed upward and outward 450 feet (thompson pg 24). May 18 at 8:32 a.m. Pacific daylight time a magnitude 5.1 out of a possible 10 earthquake shook Mount St. Helen. The bulge on the north side of the mountain gave way in a gigantic rock slide releasing pressure and triggering a major rock and pumice eruption. At thirteen hundred feet the peak collapsed and as a result 24 square miles of the valley was filled with roc and debris. From the rock slide 250 square miles of timber, recreation, and private lands were demolished from the lateral blast. For more than 9 hours the volcano spit ashes out to the air. Eventually the ashes reached 12-15 miles above sea level. The ashes went eastward at about 60 miles per hour. By noon the ashes had reached as far as Idaho. Ashes reached 11 states. The total amount of ash that fell was .26 cubic miles or enough ash to cover a football field to a depth of 150 miles (thompson pg 26). Mount St. Helen is said to have caused the most damage of any other volcano blast (Carson pg11). A total of 1.6 billion dollars of damage was caused by the blast ...

Ancient Chinese Invented Gunpowder

Ancient Chinese Invented Gunpowder Few substances in history have had as profound an effect on human history as gunpowder, yet its discovery in China was an accident. Contrary to myth, it was not simply used for fireworks but was put to military uses from its time of discovery. Eventually, this secret weapon leaked out to the rest of the medieval world. Chinese Alchemists Tinker With Saltpeter and Make Gunpowder Ancient alchemists in China spent centuries trying to discover an elixir of life that would render the user immortal. One important ingredient in many of the failed elixirs was saltpeter, also known as potassium nitrate. During the Tang Dynasty, around 850 A.D., an enterprising alchemist (whose name has been lost to history) mixed 75 parts saltpeter with 15 parts charcoal and 10 parts sulfur. This mixture had no discernable life-lengthening properties, but it did explode with a flash and a bang when exposed to an open flame. According to a text from that era, smoke and flames result, so that [the alchemists] hands and faces have been burnt, and even the whole house where they were working burned down. Use of Gunpowder in China Many western history books over the years have stated that the Chinese used this discovery only for fireworks, but that is not true. Song Dynasty military forces as early as 904 A.D. used gunpowder devices against their primary enemy, the Mongols. These weapons included flying fire (fei huo), an arrow with a burning tube of gunpowder attached to the shaft. Flying fire arrows were miniature rockets, which propelled themselves into enemy ranks and inspired terror among both men and horses. It must have seemed like fearsome magic to the first warriors who were confronted with the power of gunpowder. Other Song military applications of gunpowder included primitive hand grenades, poisonous gas shells, flamethrowers and landmines. The first artillery pieces were rocket tubes made from hollow bamboo shoots, but these were soon upgraded to cast metal. McGill University professor Robin Yates notes that the worlds first illustration of a cannon comes from Song China, in a painting from about 1127 A.D. This depiction was made a century and a half before Europeans began to manufacture artillery pieces. The Secret of Gunpowder Leaks Out of China By the mid- to late-eleventh century, the Song government had become concerned about gunpowder technology spreading to other countries. The sale of saltpeter to foreigners was banned in 1076. Nonetheless, knowledge of the miraculous substance was carried along the Silk Road to India, the Middle East, and Europe. In 1267, a European writer made reference to gunpowder, and by 1280 the first recipes for the explosive mixture were published in the west. Chinas secret was out. Down through the centuries, Chinese inventions have had a profound effect on human culture. Items like paper, the magnetic compass, and silk have diffused around the world. None of those inventions, however, have had quite the impact that gunpowder has, for good and for bad.