Mount St. Helens Today: A New Glacier Grew Inside the Crater

New documentary on America's hidden geology every day. Subscribe:    / @atlasunderfoot   Mount St. Helens today has something that did not exist in 1980: a glacier growing inside its crater, wrapped around a lava dome. This documentary shows how a volcano grew one of the youngest glaciers on Earth, and what scientists found under the ice. On May 18, 1980 the summit dropped from 9,677 to 8,363 feet and left a horseshoe crater open to the north. In the shade of the south wall, avalanche snow and rock piled up behind the first lava dome, and by 2001 the Crater Glacier covered about one square kilometer and was up to about 650 feet thick. In October 2004 fresh lava spines pushed straight through the ice, split the glacier into two arms, and squeezed them north while they thickened. Rock near 730 °C sat right next to the ice, and over the years warm air carved more than three kilometers of caves under the glacier, surveyed by researchers from 2014 to 2021. We also walk the Pumice Plain, where lupine, pocket gophers, elk, frogs, and trout brought life back to the blast zone, look at the 2024 earthquake swarm and what the USGS says it means, and check what you can visit at Mount St. Helens in 2026, from the closed Johnston Ridge Observatory to the new Spirit Lake outlet bridge. Chapters: 0:00 A glacier inside a volcano 3:28 1. The Hole Left Behind 6:00 2. A Dome in the Dark 8:28 3. When the Lava Hit the Ice 12:42 4. Caves Under the Ice 15:21 5. Life in the Blast Zone 19:34 6. Is It Reloading? 22:20 7. Mount St. Helens Today Next video: Yellowstone Lake, where the heat comes from the floor. Subscribe to Atlas Underfoot. Sources: USGS Fact Sheet 036-00; USGS SIM 2928, Rebuilding Mount St. Helens USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory: 2004-2008 Renewed Volcanic Activity; 2024 earthquake swarm update Schilling et al. (2004), Posteruption glacier development within the crater of Mount St. Helens (USGS) USGS Professional Paper 1750 (Walder et al.), Crater Glacier and the 2004-2006 dome Sobolewski et al. (2022), Journal of Cave and Karst Studies 84(2):51-65 USDA Forest Service PNW Research Station (Crisafulli); UC Riverside (2024) pocket gopher study Washington State Department of Transportation (2026), SR 504 rebuilding; OPB (April 2026) Photos: USGS, U.S. Forest Service, NASA, Washington DNR, and Wikimedia Commons contributors. Licensed photos: CC BY 2.0: CALChux, James St. John, Roy Luck CC BY 4.0: Larry D. Moore, Mattsjc CC BY-SA 2.0: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, Larry Syverson from Richmond, VA, USA, Murray Foubister, Washington DNR, Washington State Department of Natural Resources, brewbooks, brewbooks from near Seattle, USA CC BY-SA 3.0: TedQuackenbush CC BY-SA 4.0: Craigdickson1067, Dirtsc, IndayLiburan, Jmkdouglas, Maown, Marshalllee84, Ron Clausen, SounderBruce, Washington Our Home Map data: Natural Earth. Narration: synthetic voice. #MountStHelens #Volcano #Geology