Images

Debris flow in channel near Butte Camp, Mount St. Helens, Washington.

Path of small debris flows originating above Butte Camp, Mount St. Helens, Washington.

Land Remote Sensing Image of Mount St. Helens on May 22, 1983. The volcanic blast on May 18, 1980, devastated more than 150 square miles of forest within a few minutes. In this Landsat false-color images, forest appears as bright red interspersed with patches of logging. Snow appears white, and ash is gray.

Flyer for the Mount St. Helens Teacher Workshop. Held June 25-27, 2014, it was a workshop for middle school teachers.

USGS-CVO Research Geologist Peter Kelly communicates with the helicopter pilot and prepares for pick-up, on the new dome within the crater of Mount St. Helens.

USGS researcher Jeff Wynn monitors in-coming data at the CSAMT (Controlled-Source Audio-Magnetotellurics ) receiver site on Mount St. Helens. The data will be used to locate the top of the groundwater system beneath the site.

The new volcanic-gas monitoring station installed at Mount St. Helens consists of weather monitoring equipment and sensors for measuring the concentrations of water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in volcanic gas plumes.

Mauve indicates areas at risk from lava flows and avalanches of hot rock and gases called pyroclastic flows. Bright red areas that fade to orange and yellow indicate potential routes for lahars (volcanic mudflows). Not shown are areas subject to hazards from volcanic ash.

Newberry Volcano, Oregon simplified hazards map showing potential impact area for ground-based hazards during a volcanic event.

This map shows areas that could be affected by debris flows, lahars, lava flows, and pyroclastic flows from Mount Rainier if events similar in size to past events occurred today. Because small lahars are more common than large ones, most lahars would be less extensive than the hazard zone shown on the map and a few would be more extensive.

A photograph of Mount St. Helens, as viewed from Elk Rock on January 18, 2014.

Scientists conduct a stream channel cross-section survey of the Toutle River on the north side of Mount St. Helens (view to the southwest).

In left foreground, ice-ravaged mafic edifice Little Brother is separated from North Sister by Little Ice Age trough of Collier Glacier. Both North Sister and Little Brother expose numerous oxidized scoria falls, whereas smooth black Middle Sister cone is cloaked by mafic lava flows.

Map showing one-year probability of accumulation of 1 centimeter (0.4 inch) or more of tephra from eruptions of volcanoes in the Cascade Range.

Map of Mount St. Helens Crater Glacier created from LiDAR data acquired September 2009.

This shaded relief image was produced from LIDAR data. LIDAR is an acronym for Light Detection and Ranging, a modern remote sensing technique used to map topography very accurately—more so than is possible with older techniques. The crater is 1.2 miles (1.9 km) wide east-west. Elsewhere the scale varies owing to the oblique viewing angle.

Mount St. Helens and North Fork Toutle River Channel.

The popping and cracking of ice in lakes within the Newberry Volcano caldera is picked up by local seismic stations, such as Central Pumice Cone. The lake-ice quakes do not resemble standard volcanic low-frequency or high-frequency events and are sporadically observed in the winter at other ice-covered lakes in Yellowstone, Long Valley, and elsewhere.

Crews test two methods of measuring discharge of the Muddy River near Mount St. Helens, Washington. The computer and tethered orange float create a vertical discharge profile; the hand-held flow tracker confirms the data. Data collection is becoming more electronic-oriented with periodic confirmation of results by physical observations.

Repairs are made to an Acoustic Flow Monitor (AFM) located at the confluence of the North Fork Toutle River, Maratta, Castle and Coldwater Creeks, where the most recent lahar occurred in November, 2006. AFMs are installed to "hear" when lahars [muddy debris flows] move down channel so affected communities can be warned of the hazard.

This summer, crews made significant modifications to a monitoring station on the southwest flank of Mount St. Helens, greatly improving its operability in winter.