They say it’s in your best interest to be polite to volcanos, because they can blow up at any minute, but what do you do when the volcano instigates?
I’m not sure how long this has been building up, but Mount St. Helens came after Michigan on social media on Tuesday, Jan. 4. The Washington stratovolcano posted, “You know what’s weak? A state with no volcanoes. Michigan is one of those states.”
The insult comes roughly a week before Michigan football faces off against the Washington Huskies in Houston on Monday, Jan. 8.
Like many using social media, Mount St. Helens’ post was shared confidently without actually looking into it first.
A large chunk of the Upper Peninsula stretched over five counties has been referred as Copper County for almost 200 years. Keweenaw Peninsula is the largest source of native copper in the world. Do you know why copper is one of the very few metals that can be found in nature in a usable form? It’s volcanos! The intense heat and pressure of volcanic regions cause the naturally occurring metal to appear in higher concentrations in those areas than they would anywhere else.
The Porcupine Mountains are composed mostly of basalt, which -- oh, hey -- is an igneous rock, which means it’s formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava.
According to National Geographic, Summit Peak in the Porcupine Mountains is the site of one of the planet’s largest volcanic events. Keweenaw Peninsula is also home to one of the planet’s largest lava flows, the Greenstone flow.
Almost everything that makes Lake Superior so unique can be traced back to its now inactive volcanos. It’s not just copper: Volcanoes are responsible for the red and green and black stone cliffs that stretch into Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ontario, the number of waterfalls in the area, as well as Isle Royale and the Pictured Rocks. It’s the reason why Lake Superior is rockier than any of the other Great Lakes.
Are our volcanos still active? No, but that’s probably for the best. I’m not sure what made Mount St. Helens so fuming and hot-headed. It’s probably just jealous of the Great Lakes. Maybe it didn’t realize it had a hot mic. Maybe it needed to let off some steam.
