Mount St. Helens VolcanoCams

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCams, Washington, USA.

Mount St. Helens is an active volcano located in the Northwestern United States. At 8:32 Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. Nearly 230 square miles of forest was blown down or buried beneath volcanic deposits. At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

Mount St. Helens erupted again in the fall of 2004 as a new period of dome building began within the 1980 crater. Between October 2004 and February 2006, about 80 million cubic meters of dacite lava erupted immediately south of the 1980-86 lava dome.

This is a static image of Mount St. Helens, taken from the Johnston Ridge Observatory. The Observatory and VolcanoCam are located at an elevation of approximately 4,500 feet (1.37 km), about five miles (8 km) from the volcano. You are looking approximately south-southeast across the North Fork Toutle River Valley. The VolcanoCam image automatically updates approximately every five minutes.

Mount St. Helens VolcanoCams, Washington, USA.