Mount St. Helens – forty years later

The Seattle Times weekly magazine this weekend was about the Mount St Helens eruption in 1980, and and one couple’s experience with the blast.

The Mountain reminded us that it’s there. Anyone in the Pacific Northwest, caught between the mountains and the sea, are reminded that the Mountain is still there, and it’s in a long chain of active mountains. How active, we don’t know.

The Pacific Northwest was reminded a few years ago that it’s geologically behind for the next big earthquake.

If you look – and you don’t need to look closely – you can see that the ocean was where land is now. We know that the water will rise again and swallow the land.

Forty years is a very short time, geologically speaking. Will it be the next big blast, the next big quake, or the rising of the waters that will alter the landscape forever? When will it happen? Will we listen, instead of ignoring the signs, like they did forty years ago?