Poem

Blue

By: Bruce Bryan Guban

Blue is the sky so high and bright

Blue is the eagle soaring in flight

Blue is a sad song which makes people long

Blue is a sad boy alone with his toy

Narrative

Mount Pinatubo

                Mount Pinatubo is an active Volcano Located on the island of Luzon. It is located in the Tri-Cabusilan Mountain range separating the west coast of Luzon from the Central Plains.

                 Pinatubo is part of a chain of volcanoes which lie along the western part of Luzon. Mount Pinatubo and other volcanoes the Western Luzon volcanic arc arise due to magma occlusion from this subduction plate boundary.

                In Wikipedia the word Pinatubo means grown in Tagalog and Sambal, which may suggest a knowledge of its previous eruption in about AD 1500. Pinatubo might instead mean a fertile place where crops can be made to grow.

                 Several mountains near modern Pinatubo are old satellite vents of Ancestral Pinatubo, formed from volcanic plugs and lava domes. Some nearby peaks are also formed of Ancestral Pinatubo from erosion of the old mountain slopes.

                Mount Pinatubo's eruption in June 1991 produced the second largest eruption of the 20th Century and the largest eruption living memory. According to Wikipedia, the colossal 1991 eruption had a Volcanic Explosivity Index or VEI of 6 and came some 450 - 500 years after the volcanoes last known eruptive activity and some 1000 years after VEI 6 eruptive activity. Successful predictions of the onset  of the climactic eruption led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from the surrounding areas, saving many lives, but surrounding areas were severely damaged by pyroclastic flows, ash deposits and later by lahars caused by rainwater re-mobilizing earlier volcanic deposits.

                 It ejected roughly 10 billion metric tonnes of magma, and 20 million tons of SO₂ or Sulfur Dioxide, bringing vast quantities of minerals and metals to the affective environment. In my research the global temperature during eruption dropped about 0.5 ⁰C or 0.9 ⁰F and ozone depletion temporarily increased substantially.

                 According to my research on July 16, 1990, the major 1990 Luzon earthquake of magnitude 7.7 shock the Central Luzon. This was the largest earthquake recorded in 1990. On March 15, 1991, a succession of earthquake s was felt by villagers on the northwestern side of the volcano. On April 2, the volcano awoke, and over the next few week, small eruptions continued and volcanic ash fall began until eruption occurred on June 3, 1991.