QUESTION: How many board feet of standing timber (trees) was blown down by the Mount St. Helens’ blast and subsequent eruptions in 1980?
ANSWER: Find out tomorrow on Ear to the Ground …or… see the answer now on DNR’s Facebook page (while you’re there, please “fan us” — we’ve got plenty more information about Mount St. Helens coming in the next few days.)
Yesterday’s QUIZ: Q: How long did it take for the dust and ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption to circle the earth? A: 15 days.
The website of federal Mount St. Helens National Monument shows off the living laboratory the mountain became in the years following the May 18, 1980, eruption. The state was faced with its own problems after the eruption — on DNR-managed state trust land nearby, millions of board feet of timber had been destroyed by the initial blast and later eruptions.
Because the land was managed to support trust beneficiaries, including construction of public schools, DNR conducted salvage logging and replanted the area within a few years. Today, those lands feature towering trees, including the 50-foot noble fir that was the official Holiday Tree in the State Capitol rotunda last December.
The research carried out at the National Monument, on DNR-managed lands and elsewhere has contributed to rethinking ways to manage landscapes after major disturbances. Downed wood and surviving organisms have a positive influence on developing plant and animal communities. Current forest practices now call for more dead wood and live trees to be left within harvest areas than was the practice 30 years ago.
See DNR’s Mount St. Helens information page
See more photos of Mount St. Helens before and after the May 18, 1980, eruption on DNR’s Flickr page.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
