Field trip

We discovered a television series called "How The Earth Was Made." Brandon and Travis have loved watching episodes from Netflix as geologists explain how different natural wonders were created. A few weeks ago we watched one about Mt St Helens and Saturday we went on a field trip to see it in person.

Here is what Travis has to say about the trip:

"It was really fun! I liked the hike. The explosion was also very interesting."

and a diamante poem about the subject:

Volcanoes

by Travis

Volcanoes,

tall, wide,

exploding, rumbling, destroying,

rocks, snow, lava, ash, water, steam -

sliding, studying, learning

rocky, mountain,

volcanoes

Thoughts by Brandon:

"We went to mount Saint Helens a few days ago. We drove from Oregon to Washington and then to Mt St Helens. We stopped at a observatory. It is around 4200 ft above sea level. We watched another video on the volcano. When a huge bulge on the side of the volcano collapsed, releasing an enormous amount of pressure, causing an explosion that sent an ash wave that reached speeds of 300 miles an hour, that snapped 8 foot thick trees like twigs on a boulder. Mean while the avalanche made by the collapsing of the bulge was shooting across the leveled area that the ash wave had made by hurling the trees and rocks that it had knocked down at other trees and so on. The avalanche was going at around 150 miles per hour. This avalanche hit Johnston ridge which has a nearly sheer drop facing the volcano, and thus the avalanche that was at least a 1,000 feet up with an angle approximately 180 degrees, nearly straight up and down, but the avalanche shot up and over the ridge as though it wasn't there. You can still see the gaping hole where the bulge was, as well as the trees that are leveled and pointing in the direction of the blast. Trees and other plants are growing again but the landscape is not, and will not look the same again."

We also saw an episode about the Grand Canyon and the boys have tried to recreate the experiment they did to prove that the walls were formed by an overflowing lake. It was fun, but then how could it not be with lots of dirt and water?