40 years ago today, Mount St. Helens erupted
Forty years ago, a volcano in the Cascade Mountains in Washington roared, expelling plumes of ash and killing 57 people in the most destructive eruption in modern US history.
It was early morning on Mount St. Helens when the volcano shook the Earth. Accompanied by a magnitude 5+ earthquake and a debris avalanche, the eruption changed the future of volcanology.
Here are five facts about the stratovolcano.
Before erupting, the volcano was 9,677 feet
More than 1,300 feet was taken off the top of the volcano by the historic blast due to the largest landslide in recorded history.
The current summit elevation of Mount St. Helens, located in Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington, is now approximately 8,300 feet.
Over 230 square miles of forest was destroyed in minutes
Within three minutes of the volcanic eruption, the lateral blast, which traveled at more than 300 miles per hour, scorched 230 square miles of forest. More than 900,000 tons of ash was cleaned up from areas around Washington.
Thousands of animals perished in the eruption. By the end of May, wind-dispersed spiders and beetles were some of the first animals to return to the region.
The volcano has had numerous eruptions
Over the last 500 years, Mount St. Helens has had at least four major explosive eruptions and many minor eruptions.
During eruptions between 1980 to 1986 and 2004 to 2008, lava oozed onto the crater floor, “building domes taller than the Empire State Building and restoring 7 percent of the volume lost in 1980,” according to the United States Geological Survey.
The blast killed USGS scientist David Johnston
Volcanologist Dr. David Johnston, a dedicated scientist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS), was swept away by the eruption.
Johnston was one of the first members of the USGS monitoring team to arrive at Mount St. Helens, and was in charge of volcanic-gas studies.
Johnston was one of the scientists who persuaded authorities to limit access to the area around the volcano and resisted pressure to reopen it, “thereby holding the May 18 death toll to a few tens instead of hundreds or thousands,” the USGS said.
Native Americans abandoned hunting grounds at the volcano 3,600 years ago
An enormous volcano four times larger than the 1980 eruption forced Native Americans out of the grounds nearly 4,000 years ago, the United States Geological Survey said.
Native Americans gave the mountain nicknames, including Lawala Clough, Low-We- and Loowit.
The story behind the mountain, according to a Gifford Pinchot National Forest “Mount St. Helens” Brochure, is actually quite the romance.
According to one legend, Mt. St. Helens was once a beautiful maiden known as “Loowit.” When two sons of the Great Spirit “Sahale” — Wyeast and Klickitat — fell in love with Loowit, they fought over her, burying villages and destroying forests.
As punishment, Sahale smote the three lovers. In their place he erected three mountain peaks — Wyeast (Mount Hood), Klickitat (Mount Adams), and Loowit (Mount St. Helens)
