Mount St. Helens Article SummaryIn the article Making Sense of Mount St. Helens by Steve Nash, the author discusses the huge catastrophic eruption of 1980, environmental impact the impact of the eruption, biological legacy, how the eruption helps to better understand the succession process and the resurgence of scientific research at Mount St. Helens . Nash speaks of a sober expression of ecology, and what happened in 1980 was not just a “disturbance.” This instantly changed Fuji's still symmetrical volcanic appearance, with lush forests, grasslands, and clear snow-fed lakes extending northward around a huge, deep side-blown crater (Nash, 2010 ). The first phase of the eruption was the largest avalanche in recorded history, with speeds of up to 70 meters per second. This was followed within seconds by an explosion that raised matter into the sky and rained ash on 11 states. Mudslides began almost immediately, throwing liquefied sand, gravel, rocks, dirt, and other debris into the North Fork Toutle River valley, some of which eventually reached the Columbia River. The May 18, 1980 eruption was the most economically destructive volcanic event in U.S. history, killing 57 people. Despite the enormous destruction and loss created by this eruption, it also presented equal creative potential. The eruption provided an opportunity for scientists and researchers to study the changes caused by the natural destruction of the landscape. After the eruption, Nash talked about a scientist, Virginia Dale, who made a research proposal a few days after the eruption. “There was a lot of interest in how life was going to return to the area,” she says today. “The general feeling was that life had been wiped out in the blast zone, so a big question was what was happening in the middle of the paper, especially where we have known what happened for 30 years. (Nash, 2010). Mount St. Helens has helped revise one of ecology's oldest concerns: trying to recapitulate the history of how communities of plants and animals come together. over time - how one suite of species succeeds another (Nash, 2010) The author explains that there is much more biological diversity on Mount St. Helens today than before the eruption. After 30 years, Mount St. Helens has seen a noisy return of thousands of species But rebuilding the ancient evergreen forest could take hundreds of years, or it may not. not return at all. Further eruptions could generate a different outcome, or global warming could simply result in a more open, pine-dominated forest becoming a biological hotspot for the entire Cascade. Range, California to British Columbia (Nash, 2010).