Thirty years ago, on May 18, Mount St. Helens lost its top—3.7 billion cubic yards of mountain, to be exact. The peak of the Pacific Northwest icon dropped by about 1,300 feet in a matter of seconds, taking down with it enough trees to build 300,000 two-bedroom houses. Gone, too, were 200 homes, 57 human lives and most of the visible wildlife across 230 square miles.

"The first reaction for many of us was that what remained was a moonscape," recalls Jerry Franklin, professor of ecosystem analysis at the University of Washington. "But that proved to be very wrong."

Those initial bleak impressions were based on aerial views. As scientists got a closer look at the ash-laden ground, they discovered that the devastating losses had made room for remarkable gains—in terms of both ecosystem productivity and scientific progress.

Plants and animals that never stood a chance under heavy canopies of trees, or in the presence of predominating predators, began to flourish. Some of these species were brand new to the area, such as the western meadowlark. The resulting early-successional ecosystems turned out to be even more productive than those of the pre-eruption old-growth forests.

As the years went by, several lessons in fields ranging from biology to engineering to atmospheric science piled up. Zoologists studied curious cases of spiders windblown into the blast zone; volcanologists engineered stainless steel "smart spiders" to monitor ongoing volcanic activity; and forest managers took notice that areas left untouched by human hands after the eruption fostered greater biodiversity than places where people attempted to speed recovery by salvaging dead trees and planting new ones.

"For a lot of the scientists, including myself, it was kind of like being a kid in a candy store," Franklin says. "There was so much going on, and so many surprises."

View a slide show of 11 scientific lessons learned from study of the blast at Mount St. Helens

10 Comments

1. 1. frgough 05:26 PM 5/19/10

   So, when a volcano devastates a vast area of wilderness, it's a good thing because it opens the door for disadvantaged species. But when a man-made disaster has the potential of devastating a large area of wilderness, it's the apocalypse.

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2. 2. dbtinc in reply to frgough 05:37 PM 5/19/10

   frgough - interesting thought and one that is consistent with the idea that man's "interference" with nature is "unnatural" when in reality it's perfectly natural. We may not like the outcome but ...

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3. 3. jmpeavler 06:06 PM 5/19/10

   This seems to be a lesson in what probably happens after each major extinction event, such as the catastrophe at the end f the Cretaceous. Only they often take a few thousand years, presumably.

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4. 4. quincykim 07:39 PM 5/19/10

   frgough - I agree, humans are part of the big picture, and that includes human-induced disasters. I do believe that we have the responsibility to avoid disasters if possible and mitigate damage when disasters occur. However, our concept of "restoring" is just that: our concept. Well-meaning, but perhaps as misguided as our disasters. Maybe that's part of the big picture too--creating disasters and mucking the recovery. As dbtinc says, it's interesting.

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5. 5. vendicar9 10:48 PM 5/19/10

   So, when a person dies naturally, that is life, but when a person is mudered by another this is suddenly murder and considered a bad thing.
   
   Moral individuals and competent thinkers undertand why this is so, moral and intellectual degenerates do not.
   
   
   
   

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6. 6. soundaround 10:15 AM 5/20/10

   This is, once again, SA's narrow perspective on another subject. When I visited the blast zone about two year's after the event with Weyerhaeuser forester's they indeed reported and displayed that after they salvaged 600 truck loads a day for a year of downed logs that species and biodiversity increased exponentially. Right next to their land the forest land managed (or should I say mangled) by the Federal Govt. had not been touched and the forest floor was still essentially dead for miles around covered in rotting logs and ash. Thus, one has to wonder who the "forest managers" SA talked to in this article. Maybe the ones who have an agenda to prohibit proper forest management that includes utilizing our only sustainably renewable natural resource?

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7. 7. craiger77 in reply to soundaround 12:02 PM 5/20/10

   The ideas expressed here come after 30 years, not 2. What happens in the short term is usually not indicative what you will see in the long term. One of the main arguments 30 years ago for preserving large areas of the blast zone is so we have had those areas to compare to the places we allowed salvage logging to take place.
   
   What you want to refer to as "The Federal Government" was actually a large body of scientists who where experts in their field who recommended what happened in the blast zone at the time. As this article points out, many of their recommendations where based on erroneous assumptions of what would happen over the years, but only by preserving undisturbed areas have we found that out.

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8. 8. treyle 12:08 PM 5/20/10

   I lived in Pt. Townsend, Washington when Mt. St. Helens went off. My family was getting ready for church. We were about 300 miles away, but it sounded like the shipyard at Bremerton had exploded. It shook our house with 3 large "booms." The ash went East, but we got enough that I collected a jar full. My horses were covered in it and the hay we got from Eastern Washington was full of it and no one knew what it would do to animals or humans. It was a scary time. There was so much energy from the blast, it caused electrical storms and the sky was pitch black. I flew over the Mountain 2 years ago and was amazed at it's recovery and how big the trees were. It was a time that I will never forget. People were fighting the police to get to their cabins, days before it went off. The ones that died were the ones that got thru the barricades because the police tried to keep them out. There were warnings that it was going to blow, but no one expected to see what happened in the end. I will always wonder what would have happened if they would have just left it as it was. I will wonder if nature would have repaired itself without the replantings or cleanup. It was an awesome natural disaster that took your breath away at it's power. I will always remember Harry Truman and Spirit Lake and his wish to stay there where his wife was buried. My first thoughts were of him. It changed the landscape and people's lives. The ecological system was changed forever, but we have to remember that it was something that has gone on forever. Nature doesn't have to ask to happen.

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9. 9. gimmepassport 04:40 PM 5/20/10

   This is nothing new. The native Indians burned large tracts of forest because they understood the ecological gains far outweighed any damage. Today, We spend $Millions to fight forest fires. What a waste of resources (Not natural, but budgetary)!!

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10. 10. Quinn the Eskimo 05:04 PM 5/20/10

    #12
    
    BP can't shut one down. Ooooooooo.

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