Helens Eruption facts
While investigating facts about Helens Eruption, I found out little known, but curios details like:
About Robert Landsberg, a photographer who upon realisation that he is going to die in the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980 lied down on top of his equipment to preserve the photographs he had taken of the event.
Robert Landsberg, a photographer who died documenting the massive 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens. Realizing he was too close to get away safely, he continued to shoot footage until he was killed. His body was found buried beneath ash, protecting his camera film.
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across. Here are 50 of the best facts about Helens Eruption I managed to collect.
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Robert Landsburg, while filming Mount St. Helens volcano eruption in 1980 realized he could not survive it, so he rewound the film back into its case, put his camera in his backpack, and then lay himself on top of the backpack to protect the film for future researchers.
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A film crew was dropped by helicopter on St. Helens on May 23 (five days after it's eruption) to document the destruction. Their compasses, however, spun in circles and they quickly became lost.
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When Mt. St. Helens erupted, the blast was heard in British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, and California. However, the blast was not heard in Portland, Oregon only 50 miles away.
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Even though the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens is considered a medium sized eruption relative to other volcanic eruptions, the landslide that happened less than a second before was the largest landslide in recorded history
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Harry Glicken's was devastated when his mentor David Johnson died during the eruption of Mt St Helens in 1980. Glicken met the same fate 11 year's later during the eruption of Mt Unzen in Japan. Glicken and Johnson are the only American volcanologists to have died in volcanic eruptions.
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Mt. St Helens erupted while the Grateful Dead were performing 'Fire on the Mountain' in Portland, OR on June 12, 1980.
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An American photographer who knew he couldn't escape the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption due to being too close to the summit, photographed it & used his body to shield the photographs from damage. His body was discovered several days later, and those pictures proved groundbreaking for geology.
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The celebrity holdout of the Mt. St Helens eruption, Harry Truman, refused to believe the volcano would be a threat to him. His family was futile in an attempt to bribe him away with whisky. On 05/18/80 Harry was buried under 150 ft of volcanic ash with his 16 cats.
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David A. Johnston was the first to report the St. Helens eruption, transmitting "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before he was swept away by a lateral blast.
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When Mount Saint Helens erupted in 1980 in Washington State, 57 people were killed. The ash fell onto 11 states. The violent eruption destroyed about 230 square miles of forest. It blew a total of 1300 feet off the top of the volcano.
Mount St. Helens continued to erupt several times in 1980, and although not as explosive as the first, these eruptions sent ash flying to communities in the region.
[t]he 1980 [volcanic] eruption of Mount St. Helens wiped out a small resident population of about 15 mountain goats [Oreamnos americanus], but in the years since the eruption, mountain goats have been moving back on their own accord." They "have been spotted inside the crater with regularity."
From 2004 until 2008 Mount St. Helens erupted continuously.
Before the eruption of Mount St. Helens, longtime area resident Harry R. Truman stated, "You couldn't pull me out with a mule team. That mountain's part of Truman and Truman's part of that mountain." Truman's lodge would be covered in 150 feet of volcanic debris by the eruption.
Robert Landsburg, a photographer, gave his life to preserve his last pictures of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption before being covered in ash.
The Toba eruption 75,000 years ago plunged Earth into a 6 to 10 year volcanic winter reducing the world's human population to 10,000 or a mere 1,000 breeding pairs. Studies suggest the eruption was an estimated 5,000 times more powerful than Mount St. Helens's 1980 blast.
The eruption began as a landslide. The summit of Mount St. Helens was reduced by 1300 feet.
The ash cloud from the eruption took only 3 days to cross to the United States" east coast. It took 15 days from the eruption for the ash cloud to encircle the earth.
On May 18th, 1980 at 8:32 a.m. Mount St. Helens erupted. The eruption followed a 5.1 magnitude earthquake.
