31 years ago today...

[GrahamL]

got a lazy 20 minutes ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnDT_6V4qVw




Dave Crockett was a little peeved his employer had pulled coverage
of what he believed was a big story about to unfold , so went up into the mountains on his own .. got a scoop alright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njV9ski1gB4

[koputai]

A pretty awesome bit of coverage. I have the National Geographic issue on the eruption and some of the pictures and stories are amazing.

Cheers,
Jason.

[Ric]

I was studying Geology at Uni way back then.

It was discussed and used as an example in many lectures.

[gary]

Thanks for the head's up. 31 years already!

When it blows apart, it makes one ponder about the mind boggling amounts of energy involved.

According to an entry in Wikipedia, it is estimated Mount St. Helens released 24 megatons of
energy, 7 that went into the blast and the rest converted into heat.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_St_Helens

It is thus sobering when one considers that the Russian AN602 hydrogen
bomb, which was nicknamed "Tsar Bomba", when detonated in 1961 yielded
50 Megatons but had been designed to deliver 100 Megatons.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

In the second video link, it is pretty easy to forgive that Dave Crockett for
thinking for a moment he would be a goner!

[AstralTraveller]

Still is.