The Day a Mountain Blew Its Side Off — Mount St. Helens Explained

There’s a volcano in Washington that once blew its entire side off in seconds, flattened forests for miles, and killed 57 people in a single blast.

This was Mount St. Helens in 1980. First, the north side of the volcano bulged as magma pushed upward. Then a massive landslide uncorked the pressure, and a sideways explosion of ash and gas raced across the landscape faster than a jet. St. Helens sits on the Cascades volcanic arc, where an ocean plate dives beneath North America. Gas‑rich magma rose into the volcano and pressurized it from within—until the landslide ripped the top off and let that pressure escape in one violent burst.

Today the crater is partly rebuilt by new lava domes, and instruments watch every twitch of the mountain. St. Helens will erupt again someday, and it’s not the only Cascade volcano with that kind of power sitting above towns in the Pacific Northwest.

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