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…the seemingly eternal beauty of that mountain changed into something else.

Dr. Don Swanson got in a plane and started filming the event about an hour after the first blast:

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Any Plinian eruption is awesome, but what impresses me just now are those dark lahars on the volcano’s flank.

St. Helens went off around 8:30 that morning. The USGS note on YouTube says these highlights were filmed between 9:30 and 12:30 — and look how those mountain glaciers are melting!

In minutes:

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Forty-three years later, the region is peaceful enough for a relaxation video:

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But we now know how evanescent volcanic landscapes really are.

Mount St. Helens will always change into something else.

And life around it will always find a way…

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Featured image: Washington DNR, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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