The Landsat Program - Images
Mt. St. Helens, Washington
Above you see Mt. St. Helens eight years before its 1980 eruption, ten years after the eruption, and almost twenty years after the eruption. The pumice and ash from the eruption covered everything in a 200 square mile area north of the volcano. The 1990 image shows large regions still covered in ash. In the 1999 image, vegetation regrowth is working its way closer to the volcano's peak. Download full-resolution JPEGs (1 MB) 1972, 1990, 1999.
On May 18, 1980 Mt. St. Helens erupted, leveling over 200 square miles of forest. The eruption left the surrounding landscape barren and the mountain 1300 feet shorter. Prior to its eruption, Mt. St. Helens had been a popular location for outdoor recreation. In the years since the eruption, life has slowly returned to the denuded areas; an ecosystem in its infancy.
The Landsat images above show Mt. St. Helens eight years before the 1980 eruption (left: Landsat 1 image acquired on July 29, 1972, MSS bands 4,7,2), a decade after the eruption (Landsat 5 image acquired Sept. 22, 1990, TM bands 3,2,1), and nearly two decades after the eruption (Landsat 7 image acquired Sept. 7, 1999, ETM+ bands 3,2,1).
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