[Geysers] CNN- link to Mt St Helens photos & story

[V]

Photos at CNN link

Tuesday, March 8, 2005 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/08/mount.saint.helens/

Ash billows from Mount St. Helens on Tuesday.

(CNN) -- Washington state's Mount St. Helens volcano belched a column
of smoke and ash nearly six miles high Tuesday evening, leaving a plume
visible for more than 50 miles, authorities reported.

Glowing lava was visible inside the mountain's crater after the
disturbance, which occurred at about 5:20 p.m. (8:20 p.m. ET). There
were no immediate reports of damage or injuries, said Alan Steele, an
official with Washington's Emergency Management Division.

Pilots reported the column reached an altitude of about 30,000 feet,
the National Weather Service said, but no flights were reported
canceled or delayed.

The Weather Service posted ash-fall warnings for the Cascade Mountain
foothills of southern Washington after the plume appeared.

"The area that the plume is supposed to go through is pretty much
forest land," said Sgt. Tony Barnes of the Clark County, Washington,
sheriff's department.

Most of the ash was expected to fall in uninhabited areas of
neighboring Skamania County.

"We're concerned that it, of course, has erupted, but it's not to the
point where we've mobilized resources up into that area," Skamania
County Undersheriff Dave Cox said.

The volcano, located about 45 miles northeast of Vancouver, Washington,
has been rumbling and spewing steam since late September.

Geologists say that activity points to an explosive eruption, though
none believe it will reach the intensity of the 1980 eruption that
killed 57 people and knocked more than 1,000 feet off the top of the
mountain.

That eruption created the mountain's current crater. A new lava dome
has been forming inside that crater for the past several months, and
the U.S. Geological Survey said Tuesday that the growth will be
accompanied by low-level tremors, emissions of steam and volcanic gases
and some production of ash.


	
		
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