Worlds of fire and ice

Abstract

Growing up in Portland, Oregon, I have always loved the mountains. The Cascade Range runs the length of the western horizon there and on clear days (a rarity in the Pacific Northwest) it’s dominated by two giant mountains: Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens. Mt. Hood is the biggest and closest, but I loved Mt. St. Helens as a kid, because its perfect cone matched my ideas of what a mountain should be. So when small earthquakes began to rock the mountain in earlyl980 I started drawing daily pictures of the peak in my school notebook. On the first day, I remember something dark stained the summit. Within a week a small crater had formed and was eventually joined by another. On clear days from my house, I could see steam rising into the sky.

The noise made by the bubbling lava is not great, heard as we heard it from our lofty perch. ... The smell of sulphur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner. Mark Twain, Letters from Hawaii