Tag: May 18
42 for Loowit’s 42nd vol. 7: Reprise
There was life in the old girl yet.
To be fair, though, Loowit (Mount St. Helens) isn’t very old as far as volcanoes go. So when she rumbled awake in late September of 2004, volcanologists weren’t terribly surprised. She’d slumbered for less than 20 years after her 80s eruptive sequence, but it wasn’t shocking to see magma on the move again.
Her prompt eruption on October 1st signalled a new phase of dome building. And this time, we had better cameras, better monitoring equipment, and the plans in place to do some serious monitoring.
Dome within Mount St. Helens’ crater is hot and glowing as it grows, viewed from Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO), with base of small steam and ash plume. 11/4/2004. Caption and image credit: USGS
She put on a beautiful show. (more…)
42 for Loowit’s 42nd vol. 6: Beauty in Destruction
Volcanoes leave one heck of a mess to clean up when they explode near civilization. It’s not pretty, although as you can see above, it sometimes looks pretty metal.
While Washington State called out the National Guard and folks figured out how to cope with the copious ash, volcanologists picked through the ruins of a once-verdant forest, measuring various volcanic deposits and learning all they could from them. At first, it was shocking. But once you started adjusting to the change, you could start seeing the beauty in the devastation.
Look at the channel carved through the debris avalanche here: you can see gorgeous reds in the gray where hydrothermally altered rock from the former summit mixed with the more prosaic grays of younger material. The iron-stained creek flowing through added more color to the moonscape. It was alien and strangely pretty. (more…)
42 for Loowit’s 42nd vol. 5: Cataclysm
It’s a beautiful, quiet morning with spectacular weather, and then suddenly it isn’t. An earthquake strikes, the bulge gives way, and the volcano blows up and out.
Mount St. Helens in eruption. Aerial view of base of eruptive column, crater rim at right. Shows “cauliflower” effect in column. 1235 hrs PDT. Skamania County, Washington. May 18, 1980. Caption and image credit: USGS
This actually isn’t a particularly large eruption. Between the lateral blast, Plinian ash column, and the pyroclastic flows, it totals only about 1.4 cubic kilometers of material. Barely a VEI of 5. But if you’re in it, it seems large enough to have swallowed the world. It is, indeed, cataclysmic.
42 for Loowit’s 42nd vol. 4: Menacing May
May had begun with an ominous quiet.
Ominous? Surely a restless volcano quieting down is a good thing!
Yeah, not when you’ve got one flank of the mountain growing a bulge like a demonic pregnancy and displaying worrying new thermal anomalies. Add in earthquakes and dramatic swelling, and you’re sure the volcano is ready to pop.
Geodimeter station at Toutle Canyon near Mount St. Helens. Skamania County, Washington. May 2, 1980. Caption and image credit: USGS
[Monty Python voice] Look at the bulge! (more…)
42 for Loowit’s 42nd vol. 3: Ominous April
For the people who lived and worked on the flanks of Loowit (Mount St. Helens), her awakening was both curse and blessing. Living with a restless stratovolcano isn’t safe nor comfortable. But the tourism it draws is great for the local economy. Locals leaned in, creating funny hats and shirts, renaming menu items, and finding other creative ways to capitalize on her activity.
For the scientists who flocked to her, it was the chance of a lifetime.
Aerial view of Mount St. Helens and drifting plume, from northwest. Photo taken from U.S. Forest Service observer plane at 12:32 p.m. Skamania County, Washington. April 4, 1980. Caption and image credit: USGS
Volcanologists flocked to her slopes, installing equipment, taking measurements and photos, and flying over the summit as steam and ash spurted into the sky. They’d seldom had a chance to study an actively erupting composite cone so conveniently close to highways and large cities. Loowit was wonderfully accessible, and easy to observe, even in the Pacific Northwest’s capricious early spring weather. (more…)
42 For Loowit’s 42nd vol. 2: March Awakening
There’s this old saying about March: “In like a lamb, out like a lion.” This turned out to be very true in Loowit’s case as the 1980s began.
After over a century of peaceful slumber, Loowit (Mount St. Helens) began to wake. Seismic activity is nothing new around volcanoes, but this swarm was intense enough to shake the snow from her summit.
North side of Mount St. Helens, Washington, as of 24 March 1980. Numerous snow avalanche fracture scarps may be related to continued earthquake shaking. No signs of volcanic activity are evident. Caption and image credit: USGS
She still looked lovely and serene, but as March waned, signs became increasingly clear that magma was on the move in a serious way. (more…)
42 for Loowit’s 42nd vol. 1: Pre-1980 Majesty
What’s the answer to life, the Universe, and how many years it’s been since Loowit (Mount St. Helens) erupted? Why, 42, of course! We’ve plundered the archives of the United States Geological Survey and the US Forest Service for 42 of the best historical photos, plus bonus featured images.
Grab your towels and join me on an epic journey back to the 20th Century, in those years when plate tectonics was still in its infancy, volcanology was still young, and Loowit had yet to stir.
41 Years Ago Today, Volcanic Hazards Awareness Expanded With A Boom
I’m middle-aged now, but back then I wasn’t even in kindergarten yet. That sunny May day, I was inside, glued to a television screen filled with a roiling gray haze of volcanic ash. Mount St. Helens had erupted with spectacular violence after a couple of months of unrest.
Mount St. Helens in eruption on May 18, 1980. Mount Hood, a Cascades sibling, looks on in the background. Credit: USGS
There was only one thing I could do once the shock of it wore off: I promptly grabbed construction paper and crayons and drew the volcano a get well card. She looked like it hurt.
It would be a couple of years before I began to grasp the scope of what had happened, and decades more before I knew how much the 1980 awakening, eruption, and aftermath had advanced the science of volcanology.
Mount St. Helens Montage I
Before other projects intervened, I did a long series of posts on the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. I’d made it all the way to the blast deposits before my magma chamber collapsed. Part of the problem was not having good photos of said deposits ready to hand. Part of it was plain cowardice. And then a lot of other fascinating stuff happened. So the series, like a Cascades volcano, went dormant.
But dormant volcanoes roar to life again, and so shall The Cataclysm.
Right now, I’m spelunking the USGS ScienceBase Catalog, pulling every single Mount St. Helens photo I can find.