Videos

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.

(May 29, 2006, 10:45:46 to 19:30:49) The interaction of sea water and lava creates a volatile situation (Mattox and Mangan, 1997). When this happens inside the confined space of a lava tube, or a narrow, water-filled crack, the results can be impressive.

(March 20, 2006, 11:30:10 to March 22, 2006, 07:00:16) The flow field feature seen here in profile is a shatter ring.

At 11:10 in the morning on November 28, 2005, the lava delta at the East Lae‘apuki ocean entry, on Hawai‘i's southeastern coast, began to collapse into the ocean. This was not a catastrophic failure of the 13.8-hectare delta, but instead occurred by piecemeal calving of the front of the delta 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.

(May 10, 2005, 16:20:29 to 18:30:29) After the collapse of the main spatter cone at the MLK vent (see movies "Spatter cone collapse at the MLK vent"), a small lava pond was visible within the new pit. At times, the level of the lava pond rose abruptly, overflowing the rim of the pit.

(May 2, 2005, 05:30:04 to 07:30:02) During spring 2005, activity at the MLK vent, on the southwestern flank of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō cone, changed from a period of construction to one of destruction. This was highlighted by the collapse of the main MLK spatter cone.

(May 2, 2005, 02:30:28 to 07:30:37) The spatter cone collapse described in the movie below was also recorded by a time-lapse camera on the west flank of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō cone. This camera was located about 70 meters from the MLK vent and recorded two pulses of lava effusion from the vent before collapse.

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.

(February 9, 2005, 18:00:30 to February 10, 2005, 08:00:31) On February 9, 2005, an increase in lava discharge from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, part of a longer term increase in effusion rate (Miklius and others, 2006), resulted in vigorous spattering and low fountaining from the MLK vent.

Within the crater of Mount St. Helens, the 2004–2008 lava dome grew by continuous extrusion of degassed lava spines. To track growth and anticipate what the volcano might do next, scientists installed monitoring equipment, including a camera and gas sensing instruments, and made helicopter overflights to collect the temperature (FLIR) of the growing dome.

Compilation video of significant events from the dome-building eruption at Mount St. Helens, from October 1, 2004 to March 15, 2005, including steam and ash eruptions, growth of lava spines, helicopter deployment of monitoring equipment, collection of lava samples, and FLIR thermal imaging of rock collapse on lava dome.

By late October 2004, a whaleback-shaped extrusion of solid lava (called a spine) emerged from Mount St. Helens' crater floor. The 2004–2008 lava dome grew by continuous extrusion of degassed lava spines that had mostly solidified at less than 1 km (0.62 mi) beneath the surface.

Following unrest that began on September 23, 2004 and the steam and ash eruptions in early October, extrusion of solid magma typified the 2004-2008 eruption at Mount St. Helens. The magma is unusually gas poor and crystal rich.  Several meters of pulverized, variably sintered rock commonly coat the emergent lava spines, lending them a smooth appearance.

On October 11, 2004, spines of solid, but still hot, lava punctured the surface of the deformed glacier, initiating a new dome-building phase of activity in the crater of Mount St. Helens. By late October, a larger whaleback-shaped extrusion of solid lava (called a spine) emerged from the crater floor.

After two weeks of increasing seismicity, Mount St. Helens began erupting on October 1, 2004. The first of several explosions shot a plume of volcanic ash and gases into the atmosphere. Four additional steam and ash explosions occurred through October 5, and three produced noticeable fallout of fine ash downwind.

On October 1, 2004, an explosion in the crater of Mount St. Helens sent ash and water vapor several thousand feet into the air. It was the dramatic beginning of an eruption that continued for the next 3+ years. The explosion fractured Crater Glacier and hurled rocks for at least one-half mile across the western half of the glacier and the 1980-1986 lava dome.

(March 2, 2004, 11:48:17 to 23:08:42) Late 2003 through early 2004 marked a period of heightened eruptive activity at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō (Miklius and others, 2006) on Kīlauea Volcano's east rift zone, with lava frequently spilling from vents within the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater.