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1980 Eruption Of Mount Saint Helens
On March 27, 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major explosive eruption took place on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 AM. The eruption, which had a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 5, was the most significant to occur in the contiguous United States since the much smaller 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. It has often been declared the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history. The eruption was preceded by a two-month series of earthquakes and steam-venting episodes caused by an injection of magma at shallow depth below the volcano that created a large bulge and a fracture system on the mountain's north slope. An earthquake at 8:32:11 am PDT ( UTC−7) on Sunday, May 18, 1980, caused the entire weakened north face to slide away, a sector collapse which was the largest subaerial landslide in r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eruption Column An eruption column or eruption plume is a cloud of super-h |
