Word: volcanoed
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When Mount St. Helens finally blew its top after almost two months of rumbling and sputtering, the show was spectacular enough that it hardly required an encore for a century or so. But last week the seemingly inexhaustible volcano gave another lively performance. A second major eruption shook the mountain over the Memorial Day weekend, and steam and ash belched forth in fitful bursts throughout the week. More ominously, seismologists detected tremors originating from deep within the volcano's molten rock core, another sign of restlessness...
...latest round of activity caught scientists by surprise. Though volcanologists have been able to predict almost to the hour when the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands will erupt, Mount St. Helens presents a more difficult problem for would-be prognosticators. The molten rock, or magma, underneath the Washington volcano is a thicker, silica-rich material (unlike the less viscous molten basalt of the Hawaiian chain); more pressure must build up before the hot gases trapped within it are released. Thus the mountain erupts infrequently and violently...
...these pent-up gases, but U.S.G.S. scientists were saying last week that they would not be surprised if Mount St. Helens continued venting steam, ash and pumice intermittently for another ten or 15 years. The reason, the scientists explained, is that it could take that long for the volcano to complete the internal rebuilding process that will seal it off again...
...months ahead, residents of Ritzville and a large slice of the Northwest will have to live with the ash, a visible reminder of the titanic forces of nature that shape the earth. To volcano experts Mount St. Helens may be a baby and its eruption second-rate. But to the people in its path it was a catastrophe...
...Mount Pelee, a long-dormant volcano on the island of Martinique, exploded, sending a huge cloud of dust, steam and gas, believed to be as hot as 1,800° F over the town of Saint-Pierre. Within minutes the town was a smoldering ruin, and 29,933 inhabitants were dead. Only four residents are known to have survived, including a convicted murderer who was imprisoned in a dungeon cell...