Volcanoes

Mount Vesuvius
    Mount Vesuvius is a volcano located in Italy. It is actually in a crater of Mount Somma.   One of Mount Vesuvius' large eruptions was in 79 A.D. That eruption buried the city of Pompeii and the neighboring city of Herculaneum.  Since that devastating eruption Mount Vesuvius has erupted over fifty times.

    After the eruption in 79 A.D. Mount Vesuvius erupted every hundred years.  This pattern was interrupted in 1037 when the volcano didn't erupt for another six hundred years. In 1631 Mount Vesuvius erupted once again, killing 4,000 people.  During the restoration process after that eruption the ruins from its 79 A.D. eruption were found.

Mount St. Helens
     Mount St. Helens is in Washington.  It is included in the Cascade Range which extends from Canada to California.  Mount St. Helens is known to be a composite volcano.  This powerful volcano is also a part of the "Ring of Fire".
After 1857 Mount St. Helens remained fairly calm ,other than a few steam explosions, for about a hundred years.

    In 1980 Mount St. Helens broke her silence with the one of the most significant geological occurrences of the century.  The chain of events surrounding the eruption of Mount St. Helens started on May18. In all 57 people lost their lives.