It’s 35 years since Mount St. Helens in the US state of Washington state exploded, killing 57 people and dramatically reshaping the land around it.
This image, NASA’s most recent, was taken by satellite on 30 April this year and shows that the recovery of the area has been slow.
The three-dimensional view of the mountain looks toward the southeast. It was assembled from data acquired by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 and the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on Terra.
The mountain’s north flank was the site of the collapse and lateral explosion that devastated 390 square kilometres around the volcano.
Below is a picture of the volcano taken of the north face of the mountain on 17 May, 1980 – a day before the eruption.
Originally published by Cosmos as Scars of Mount St Helens eruption remain
Bill Condie
Bill Condie is a science journalist based in Adelaide, Australia.
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