Paranalense on 11 May 2008 at 10:21 am
@StevoR:

Well, given that the LBT is on Arizona, I would say it’s completely safe from the Chaiten Volcano rage… But talking about the other telescopes located in Chile, most of them are located some 1500 kms north of the volcano. That number goes for Gemini South, Cerro Tololo (CTIO), Las Campanas and La Silla. Paranal (VLT) is more than 2100 kms north of Chaiten. So, nothing to worry. I’m writing this from Paranal, by the way…

Good to hear. Thanks.
My grasp of South American geography is, I’ll admit a bit hazy .. I knew we had quite a few big scopes there (hmm.. felt sure the LBT was one of them… anyway, ‘parently not.) but wasn’t at all sure where.

Cheers for that & best wishes -hope the volcanic ash plume doesn’t drift your way at all – & hope it does cool the Earth off a little and thus cancels out some global warming for us.

I can’t seem to find a URL containing the actual news photo on the Internet. But I did find a good story explaining who the boy was and how he got there. The boy was named Andy Karr and he was 11 years old on May 18th, 1980. His dad decided to take him and his brother Mike, age 9, on a camping trip to Mt. St. Helens. So they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Talk about stupid parental decision making – taking your two boys on a camping trip to within 4 miles of a summit of a volcano that has been smoking and belching forth steam for several weeks. Just plain dumb – I get mad just thinking about that jackass father.

http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5457

On Saturday May 17, Day Karr, age 37, took his two sons, Day Andrew and Michael Murray, for a weekend camping trip to Mount St. Helens. Day Karr, co-owner of a Seattle produce wholesaler called Sound Produce (1932 Occidental Ave S), lived at 3219 SW Point Place in Seattle. Andy, age 11, and Mike, age 9, lived with their mother, Barbara Karr, at 19025 SE Jones Road in Maple Valley. Day Karr and his boys enjoyed camping and they headed to one of their favorite campsites located 4 to 4 ½ miles northwest of Mt. St. Helens. Barbara Karr said, “They had camped there often before … I knew he was hoping to get some more pictures of the mountain. The boys were along because they loved to go camping with their father” (Post-Intelligencer June 15, 1980).

On a recent visit Day Karr had taken a photo of Mount St. Helens which he sold to a national wire service, and he was returning to the mountain hoping to get some more good shots. On the morning of May 18 the Karrs had gotten up early and were in their pickup truck when the mountain erupted.

The Volcano Erupts

As the northern top of the mountain started sliding to the north, the pressure of the rising magma inside the mountain was released. Several events happened almost simultaneously:

Sound and shock waves shot straight up towards the heavens.

At 660 degrees F., hot gases and pulverized pieces of the mountain were blasted to the north and swept along the ground at speeds of at least 300 mph. Within about a minute of the eruption, the Karr pickup truck was overwhelmed and its three occupants were killed. The lateral blast was so powerful that all trees and vegetation in a six mile radius to the north of Mount St. Helens, including where the Karrs were, vaporized.

In less than five minutes after the eruption, the seething blast continued out 18 to 23 miles from the mountain, killing nearly all vegetation. Trees, mainly Douglas Firs, some 200 feet high, were stripped of branches and bark and blown down like toothpicks. Some old growth trees were picked up, roots and all, and thrown over a ridge 1,500 feet high.

The top of the mountain, composed of rock debris, snow, and ice, rushed down the mountain at speeds up to 200 mph and over a portion of the lateral blast area. Most of the debris landslide flowed to the northwest following the North Fork of the Toutle River. In 10 minutes it had traveled 13 ½ miles. The mountain avalanche covered a 24 square mile area to an average thickness of 150 feet — in some places it was 600 feet thick. In moments Mount St. Helens dropped from being the fifth highest mountain in Washington at 9,677 feet to being the 30th highest peak at 8,364 feet. The south side of the mountain lost 1,313 feet in elevation and the north side lost about 2,900 feet. The volcano left a crater more than a square mile wide, about the size of Seattle’s downtown business area.

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Tragically, Day Karr’s hope of a photograph that could be sold nationally was realized when a photographer from the San Jose Mercury took a photograph of the Karr pickup truck showing the body of one of the children in the back of the truck.

Oh don’t even joke about that… Bush will send the remaining US forces directly into the volcano!!!