Everything about Spirit Lake Washington totally explained
Spirit Lake is a
lake north of
Mount St. Helens in
Washington State. The lake was a popular tourist destination for many years until the
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Thousands of trees were torn from the surrounding hillside after the lake was sloshed 800 feet up the hillside.
Lahar and
pyroclastic flow deposits from the eruption blocked the North Fork Toutle River valley at its outlet, raising the surface elevation of the lake by over . The newly raised lake was also 10 percent smaller and much shallower.
After the eruption, Spirit Lake contained highly toxic water with
volcanic gases seeping up from the lake bed. A month after the eruption, the lake was devoid of
oxygen. Scientists predicted that the lake wouldn't recover quickly, but, perhaps surprisingly, three years after the Mount St. Helens eruption, Spirit Lake had more biological activity than ever before. In 1993,
fish were seen for the first time in Spirit Lake since the 1980 eruption.
However, the logs that were deposited in the lake during the Mount St. Helens eruption still remain and cover a large portion of the surface water. The rasping of logs together has deposited tree bark in the bottom of the lake. The bare logs sink upright to the bottom of the lake due to the higher density of the root end, and land on layers of volcanic ash sediment. The high mineral content of the water rapidly petrifies the logs in upright position as transplanted stumps. Spirit Lake is the first location where this process was observed since being predicted by scientists shortly before the 1980 eruption. Even though the lake was devastated by Mount St. Helens, it has rebounded significantly and is on the way to recovery.
Before the eruption of Mount St. Helens, there were four camps on the shore of Spirit Lake: a
Boy Scout camp, a
Girl Scout camp, a
YMCA camp, and another for the general public. There were also a number of lodges catering to visitors, including Spirit Lake Lodge and Mt. St. Helens Lodge; the latter was inhabited by
Harry R. Truman, who became one of the volcano's victims.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Spirit Lake Washington'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://spirit_lake__washington.totallyexplained.com">Spirit Lake (Washington) Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |