2024年4月28日 · The eruption of Mount St. Helens destroyed 230 square miles of forests and obliterated all trees within six miles. It killed 57 people, some 7,000 big game animals, and 12 million young salmon, as well as almost all the birds and small mammals in its path.

In the first few days after Mount St. Helens erupted—sending some 540 million tons of ash over an area of 22,000 square miles—the WSU ecology professor was already thinking of its potential research value.

When Mount St. Helens erupted, it left hundreds of square miles of what appeared to be a barren wasteland. Scientists thought nothing could have survived — and that life would take years to return. Life is resilient, however, and returned sooner than anyone could have imagined.

After Mount St. Helens’ eruption, worldwide interest in volcanism blossomed. Scientists and eager students sought to understand volcanoes, improve monitoring and warning systems, assess volcanic hazards, and communicate with at-risk populations.

2024年4月17日 · On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted and drastically changed the surrounding environment. Despite the devastation to plant, animal, and human communities, ecological recovery developed over time. Scientists saw the landscape as an ideal place to study ecological processes, while the timber industry wanted to hasten the forest’s rebound.

After May 18, 1980, five more explosive eruptions of Mount St. Helens occurred in 1980, including this spectacular event of July 22, which sent pumice and ash 6 to 11 miles into the air.

2024年5月21日 · On May 18th, 1980, at 8:32 a.m., Mount St. Helens erupted, killing 57 and damaging ~210 square miles of wilderness, turning it into a wasteland. The eruption was the most destructive in US history and displaced 2.79 cubic kilometers of material, according to the USGS.

2022年6月6日 · In the years after the eruption, Mount St. Helens was very susceptible to the effects of drought. Soils were unable to hold water, instead precipitation would run over the land creating mudflows sometimes bringing seedlings down with them (Dale 2005).

After 123 years of slumber—and consequent indifference from Northwest residents for much of that time—Mount St. Helens reawakened. It began with a flurry of earthquakes, followed by a small eruption at the snow-covered summit that opened a 250-foot-wide crater.

2020年5月18日 · It has been forty years since Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, in southwestern Washington, near the Oregon border. Fifty-seven people lost their lives in the disaster, and huge swaths of the surrounding forest were levelled.