I've been following the USGS Volcanoes page for a year or so. Lately they have been doing a "Mount St. Helens Re-cap" of how it all unfolded 40 years ago to each day. Today, they mentioned something that might interest you guys out there. ?????ÿ
#40YearsAgo at #MountStHelens, Apr 13, 1980: USGS scientists Don Swanson and Jim Moore are up at the Timberline area with a theodolite atop a tripod, looking at the targets on the north flank of Mount St. Helens called Sugarbowl and Goat Rocks. The angles show Sugarbowl to be stationary. Yet, over an hour and a half, Goat Rocks seems to have moved away from Sugarbowl by a foot. These numbers can??t be real, thinks Swanson. There must be a problem with the instrument. Volcanoes don??t move this much!
USGS scientists Rocky Crandell and Don Mullineaux have been cooped up in Vancouver, minding the agencies and the press. They drive up to the volcano with USGS Director William Menard, swing around the Timberline loop, step out by snowbanks darkened by the previous night??s ash fall. Familiar with the mountain??s profile since the 1940s, Mullineaux stares up at the fissured slope. So appallingly sheer, he thinks. No one should be here! Crandell too, sees the bulging north flank. The Forest ranger says it??s been swelling two weeks. The group climbs the knoll to the theodolite. Swanson is still having trouble settling on a final measurement. Two minutes ago, it seemed a bit higher, now a bit lower??like it??s moving up and down. Maybe it??s just light distortion as the sun comes in and out. Only later will they know that as the USGS director gawks and talks at Timberline, the blackened slope inched out above.
The image is a view from the Timberline parking area, toward the bulge, taken April 13, 1980.
Dang.?ÿ I'm getting old!?ÿ That really has been forty years ago.?ÿ Wow!
Remember that Summer very well.?ÿ BTW, I have a Christmas tree ornament that was formed from materials that spewed from Mt. St. Helens.?ÿ A friend who had relatives in the area passed it along to me in the mid-1980's.
That really has been forty years ago.?ÿ Wow!
It you'd have asked me before reading this, I'd have said maybe 30 years, tops.
It you'd have asked me before reading this, I'd have said maybe 30 years, tops.
Youngster. The older you get the more history feels condensed compared to the true number of years.
I remember the dates because I was living on campus at College of the Redwoods in Eureka and our cars were covered with ash for days.
@flga
So that would have made you about 52 or 53.
I was in Idaho in 1990 and we were clearing line through some pine trees. Most of the branches had ash on them and I asked my buddy if this was from a forest fire. He said nope, that's from Mt St Helens, 10 years ago!
According to Angel you were only five in 1990. You were a tough kid clearing line in a forest at five. 😉 😉
That might have been the last time I wore a face mask for good reason.?ÿ That ash was abrasive and got into everything.?ÿ
@daniel-ralph The disease you get from breathing it is called
pneumonultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Similar to coal miner's lung.
I was scheduled to do some field work on the Cowlitz River near Randle when St. Helens blew.?ÿ Don't remember why it was canceled, but thank goodness!
My brother and I both learned that word in grammar school. 45 letters and 19 syllables. Just one of hundreds of useless trivial facts I have clogged my hard drive with over the past 60 years. Still remember my high school locker combinations. My brother was even worse - memorized the VIN of every car he ever owned.
For some reason or another I don't recall exactly where I was that day, could have been just about anywhere west of the Rockies (probably Southern Idaho or Central Utah). I do remember that we had several crews running Gravity Surveys in Eastern Oregon & Western Montana at the time, and I headed to Western Montana shortly thereafter. We did stock up on air filter cartridges for all of our vehicles, and in some areas, they were replaced daily. It doesn't seem like 40 years ago to me either, more like 30 or 100 depending on what I am thinking about.
Loyal?ÿ
My youngest child (son) turned 10 in 1990...
Yikes! That means he turns 40 this year!
Now, I feel old...
See if you guys can see this...It goes directly to their link with a daily pic of the mountain as it was on that day, pre-eruption. ????
@holy-cow
Apparently their link didn't work. Figures... ????
Here's what it said:
#40YearsAgo at #MountStHelens, Apr 14, 1980:
This is the fourth week of activity at the volcano. Seismometers show continued sizeable earthquakes, but no explosions. A local newspaper chides Mount St. Helens for putting on a half-hearted show with just minor steam emissions and a little ash.
Sheriff’s deputies and US Forest Service personnel are out looking for a group of hikers who climbed Mount St. Helens, in violation of regulations that closed off access to the volcano. Anyone caught above tree line is subject to up to six months in jail and a $500 fine, but enforcement is difficult. Two Seattle television stations set helicopters down on the summit and walked to within four feet of the crater. The summit is technically owned by Burlington Northern Railroad and private property. The TV crews claim immunity to prosecution because they landed on property outside of the closure enforced by the Forest Service. Burlington Northern later asks the Forest Service to administer the property its owns on the crater as closed.
The image is an aerial panorama photo of Mount St. Helens and the north flank (crevassed and ash-covered) taken on April 15, 1980.
I was there, sort of.?ÿ Mushroom hunting with friends in the Blue Mountains near Dayton Wa, in the path of the heaviest ashfall.?ÿ It was a clear day & we knew something was amiss when the western horizon was blacked out by rapidly approaching billowing black clouds.?ÿ By the time we got back to the farm truck (no car radio) it was pitch black in the middle of the day & even with headlights the driver couldn't see the 4WD road so one of us walked a few feet ahead down the center of the road to guide the truck.?ÿ The ashfall caused coughing and eye watering but no Vesuvius-like chance of asphyxiation.?ÿ We thought it was Hanford suffering a cataclysmic nuclear explosion & found out when we got to Dayton it was the volcano.
An exciting day but the months following concerning ash cleanup was not so fun.
