Mount St. Helens: Forty Years After the Eruption
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Forty years ago, a tremendous volcanic blast transformed hundreds of square kilometers of the Pacific Northwest.
Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with the NASA Earth Observatory: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/.
- NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.
- Image of the Day story by Kathryn Hansen: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146735/mount-st-helens
- Adaptation to ViewSpace by Margaret W. Carruthers and Dani Player
- Music from Music for Nonprofits
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[AWE-INSPIRING MUSIC]
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Text, Earth Watch, Exploring the blue planet by satellite. Earth Observatory. Earth Observatory dot NASA dot gov. Operational Land Imager, Landsat 8 Satellite. Mount Saint Helens Forty Years After the Eruption. Forty years ago, a tremendous volcanic blast transformed hundreds of square kilometers of the Pacific Northwest. April 17, 2020.
The Eruption of Mount Saint Helens on May 18, 1980 was the deadliest volcanic eruption in U.S. history.
Satellite images obtained in the days around the eruption helped scientists understand the event, while those acquired in the four decades since have provided insight into how a landscape recovers.
Ash-covered regions that were gray and barren immediately following the eruption are now green with vegetation. An arrow points to a dark green patch of recovered vegetation to the northwest of the volcano.
Text, The explosion scar still remains, as do the bare flanks of the volcano and the "pumice plain" north of the volcano, which has been very slow to recover. The volcano's crater in the center of the image. The ashy gray-colored pumice plain to the northwest of the crater.
Text, In this Landsat image captured in April 2020, seasonal snow still blankets high elevations. An arrow points to snow that surrounds the crater.
Text, By August, most of the snow on the mountain will melt.
To learn more, go to earth observatory dot nasa dot gov.