Why Was Mount St. Helens so Destructive?
In just three minutes, the blast of the Mount St. Helens volcanic eruption hurled 3.7 billion cubic yards of fiery rock and dust (enough to fill 1 million Olympic pools) over 230 square miles (595 square km) of pristine forest landscape on May 18, 1980. Before the day was over, 57 people were dead. Nearly 7,000 big game animals, including deer and elk, perished along with countless fish and birds. Millions of Douglas fir trees lay like as many match sticks on the scorched Earth. A number of forces, including the amount of gas in the magma, the rock structure inside the volcano, and the asymmetrical way that magma rose to the surface contributed to the massive devastation of the explosion.
