Guest Thinkers — September 1, 2010

29th Anniversary of the Mount Saint Helens Eruption

It has been 29 years since the eruption at Mt. Saint Helens in Washington – an eruption that not only captivated the nation, but helped modernize volcano monitoring in the U.S.

Erik Klemetti

Mount Saint Helens less than 30 seconds after a sector collapse that triggered one of the largest eruptions in the Cascades in the last 500 years.

Today is the 29th anniversary of the dramatic eruption of Mount Saint Helens in Washington state. The eruption dramatically changed the landscape around the volcano along with greatly increasing our understanding of volcanic sector collapses and explosive eruptions. I was going to write a larger entry on the event, but alas, I will instead be lecturing to 100 UC Davis students about the event today instead (sorry folks!)

Instead, if you want to relive (or just live, as the case might be) the 1980 eruption, check out this YouTube video I found with the CBS Evening News coverage of the eruption soon after it happened. Wired also has some great images from before/during/after the events of May 18, 1980.

Feel free to leave your memories of the eruption here!

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