Videos

The May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens triggered a growth in volcano science and volcano monitoring. Five USGS volcano observatories have been established since the eruption. With new technologies and improved awareness of volcanic hazards USGS scientists are helping save lives and property across the planet.

This video presents information on historical and recent earthquake activity in the Bay Area of California. Experts discuss scientific and engineering issues, as well as personal safety and community well-being. The 7 Steps to Safety are neatly outlined, showing families how to be prepared before, during, and after an earthquake.

This video presents information on historical and recent earthquake activity in the Bay Area of California. Experts discuss scientific and engineering issues, as well as personal safety and community well-being. The 7 Steps to Safety are neatly outlined, showing families how to be prepared before, during, and after an earthquake.

Virtual fly-through of San Francisco Bay revealing the seafloor as if the water was drained from the Bay. The movie flies through the south and central Bay, pausing over prominent seafloor features including, large sand waves, rock pinnacles, current scour pits, as well as many human impacts on the seafloor.

This film depicts the realistic outcome of a hypothetical, but plausible, magnitude 7.8 earthquake on the San Andreas fault in Southern CA.

Animation showing the intensity of groundshaking across the San Francisco Bay region during a hypothetical M 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault with the epicenter in Fremont. Visit M7.0 Earthquake Scenarios - Hayward Fault for detailed perspective views. &

Scenario shows the ground shaking for a magnitude 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward fault with the epicenter in Oakland, California. Visit M7.0 Earthquake Scenarios - Hayward Fault for detailed perspective views.  

Animation showing the intensity of groundshaking across the San Francisco Bay region during a hypothetical M 7.0 earthquake on the Hayward Fault with the epicenter in San Pablo Bay. Visit M7.0 Earthquake Scenarios - Hayward Fault for detailed perspective views.&

This video provides a visual example of how airborne LiDAR (Light D
etection And Ranging) imagery penetrates dense forest cover to reveal
an active fault line not detectable with conventional aerial
photography. The video shows an aerial perspective of the range front
Mt. Tallac fault, which is one of five active faults that traverse

Fowler, K.K., Kim, M.H., Menke, C.D., and Arvin, D.V., 2010, Flood of September 2008 in Northwestern Indiana: U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report 2010--1098, 20 p.

Flood of September 2008 in Northwestern Indianahttp://pubs.usgs.gov/ofr/2010/1098/

The rapid onset of unrest at Mount St. Helens on September 23, 2004 initiated an uninterrupted lava-dome-building eruption that continued until 2008. The initial phase produced rapid growth of a lava dome as magma pushed upward.

Mount St. Helens reawakened in late September 2004. Small magnitude earthquakes beneath the 1980-1986 lava dome increased in frequency and size, and a growing welt formed on the southeast margin of the previous lava dome and nearby portions of Crater Glacier.

The first priority of any eruption is to assess current status and what might happen next. To accomplish this, Mount St. Helens became one of most heavily monitored volcanoes. At the start of the 2004–08 eruption, 13 permanent seismic stations operated within about 12 miles of Mount St. Helens.

Throughout the eruption, scientists installed monitoring stations to track volcanic activity, deployed temporary monitoring ""spiders"", monitored the temperature of lava spines and created time-lapse of dome growth. During the 3+ years of the eruption, lava piled up to form a new dome 460 m (1,500 ft) high.

This short excerpt is from a USGS/Bay Area Earthquake Alliance produced television program "Shock Waves: 100 Years After the 1906 Earthquake". This specific segment describes some of the history behind our modern understanding of the earthquake process. The program received numerous industry awards and was nominated for a regional Emmy Award in the Bay area.

Shock Waves is an Emmy Award nominated USGS television program that aired on San Francisco's CBS-5 in April, 2006 during the week of the 100 year anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake. The program is hosted by Dana King and was produced and directed by Stephen M. Wessells.

At 11:10 in the morning on November 28, 2005, the active lava delta at East Lae'apuki began to fall into the ocean. This was not a catastrophic collapse, with the entire 34-acre delta going at once, but instead occurred in a piece-meal fashion over a period of just less than 5 hours.

From 2005 to 2010, the U.S. Geological Survey-Cascades Volcano Observatory operated a remote camera on the northwest flank of Mount St. Helens. Looking into the crater, the camera captured hourly photographs of volcanic dome growth during the 2004-2008 eruption.

Events that occurred in the crater during the 2004–2008 eruption were recorded by a network of seven remote, telemetered digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras installed on the crater floor and rim. The resulting time lapse images constitute a valuable and visually compelling record of dome growth and the resulting response of Crater Glacier.

Lava spines continue to emerge onto the crater floor of Mount St. Helens in 2005. By April 2005, spine 4 is broken and pushed away by spine 5.  The nearly vertical spine 5 has a smooth, gouge-covered surface, growing at an average rate of 4.3 meters per day.

Growth and disintegration of lava spines continued at Mount St. Helens through the first 8 months of 2005. Rather than building a single dome-shaped structure, the new dome grew initially as a series of recumbent, smoothly surfaced spines that extruded to lengths of almost 500 m.