07 May 2004

Remembering Mount St. Helens

Jim Hannon

Shortly after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, I visited the site as part of an Earthwatch (http://www.earthwatch.org/) scientific expedition. The public was not allowed into the area at the time, so we saw some unique sights. The area looked much like the pictures coming back from Mars, for there was nothing but rocks and dust as far as you could see.

As the digital scan of the photograph shows, the mountain was still letting off steam. The expedition was studying the manner in which plants repopulated the area after being totally wiped out. We set up seed traps to identify airborne seeds, and we did a survey of the plants that had started regrowing.