Mt St Helens, 35 years later

[DrLeftover]

Early data collected in a pioneering effort to map the inner workings of Mount St. Helens have provided promising initial insights, 35 years after a massive eruption by the Washington state volcano killed at least 57 people, scientists said on Monday.

Further progress is expected soon after readings are collected from more than 70 monitoring devices that ring the mountain, many at high altitudes, which have been inaccessible throughout the winter, they said.

"It doesn't look the way we expected it to," Rice University geologist Alan Levander, who is involved in the research, said of the initial data, adding that with limited two-dimensional images collected so far it take several years for scientists to more fully understand what they are viewing.

Mount St. Helens, which sits between Seattle and Portland, Oregon, erupted in an explosion of hot ash on May 18, 1980, spewing debris over a wide area, killing 57 people and causing more than $1 billion in damage.

Now, through small quakes created via dynamite-triggered blasts that fire seismic waves through the volcano's interior, researchers are working to develop ultrasound-like images of molten rock within the volcano in a project that could improve warning systems.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/18/us-usa-mountsthelens-idUSKBN0O326B20150518


I remember everybody at the college I was going to going out to check to see if any of the ash and dust from the eruption made it this far by putting tape on their cars in the parking lot sticky side up.

I didn't bother.

 

[Lizzy]

Being in Idaho we got a good deal of ash. We were home roughly a half hour, me and my folks were at the lake fishing. I was doing dishes when things started going dark, and it looked like it was snowing. That's when we found out after flipping on the news. I can tell ya one thing the aspen tree in our front yard loved it, top leaves ended up the size of small plates.