 It was the year 1980 when mount. St. Helens eruption destroyed my town. It was horrible. Our scientist told us to flee, some said they were not going to flee and stayed. How rude of me, my name is Annabeth. I had just turned 13 when they told us to leave. After the eruption we went to go see were our town was. Nothing was there. The whole town was gone. People cried over friends and family. My father had helped the elder get out, but still made it out. It was the worst day in history. The town of Water spring was buried in ashes. It was never the same. Some of us wanted to stay and make a new town, some left. We made some houses to stay in. We felt some aftershocks so left….

Fault: A fault is an area of stress in the earth where broken rocks slide past each other, causing a crack in the Earth's surface. There are the major types of faults: dip-slip normal, dip-slip reverse, strike-slip, and oblique-slip.

 The theory of plate tectonics is an interesting story of continents drifting from place to place breaking apart, colliding, and grinding against each other. The plate tectonic theory is supported by a wide range of evidence that considers the earth's crust and upper mantle to be composed of several large, thin, relatively rigid plates that move relative to one another. The plates are all moving in different directions and at different speeds. Sometimes the plates crash together, pull apart or sideswipe each other. When this happens, it commonly results in earthquakes.

 Volcanoes were erupting in areas that are now Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. Lava from some volcanoes flowed in slow-moving sheets like lava from the Hawaiian volcanoes, but other eruptions were explosive, like Mount St. Helens. Although volcanic activity ended hundreds of millions of years ago, rocks that formed from these ancient volcanoes are still visible. Fragments that erupted from ancient volcanoes and minerals that filled holes where gas bubbles had escaped can be seen in some rocks at White Top Mountain in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area of southern Virginia.

 A volcano is a landform (usually a mountain) where molten rock erupts through the surface of the earth. In simple terms a volcano is a mountain that opens at the top, to a pool of molten rock ( magma ) below the surface of the earth. It is a hole in the Earth from which molten rock and gas erupt. The name "volcano" has its origin from the name of Vulcan, a god of fire in Roman mythology. As pressure in the molten rock builds up it needs to escape somewhere. Once the magma erupts through the earth’s surface it’s called lava

 Earthquakes generate seismic waves which can be detected with a sensitive instrument called a seismograph. Advances in seismograph technology have increased our understanding of both earthquakes and the Earth itself.  Perhaps the earliest seismograph was invented in China A.D. 136 by a man named Choko.

 Seismograph is another Greek term from seismós, to draw. It is often used to mean seismometer, though it is more applicable to the older instruments in which the measuring and recording of ground motion were combined than to modern systems, in which these functions are separated. Both types provide a continuous record of ground motion; this distinguishes them from seismoscopes, which merely indicate that motion has occurred, perhaps with some simple measure of how large it was. [ [

 Did you now……. Most aftershocks are located over the full area of fault rupture and either occur along the fault plane itself or along other faults within the volume affected by the strain associated with the main shock. Typically, aftershocks are found up to a distance equal to the rupture length away from the fault plane.

DROP to the ground; take COVER by getting under a sturdy table or other piece of furniture; and HOLD ON until the shaking stops. If there isn’t a table or desk near you, cover your face and head with your arms and crouch in an inside corner of the building. Stay away from glass, windows, outside doors and walls, and anything that could fall, such as lighting fixtures or furniture. Stay in bed if you are there when the earthquake strikes. Hold on and protect your head with a pillow, unless you are under a heavy light fixture that could fall. In that case, move to the nearest safe place. Use a doorway for shelter only if it is in close proximity to you and if you know it is a strongly supported, load bearing doorway. Stay inside until the shaking stops and it is safe to go outside. Research has shown that most injuries occur when people inside buildings attempt to move to a different location inside the building or try to leave. Be aware that the electricity may go out or the sprinkler systems or fire alarms may turn on. DO NOT use the elevators.