Mount St. Helens Declared Napping by USGS

After a five-month period without further explosions or lava flows, Mount St. Helens has been declared a temporarily sleeping volcano by scientists at the U.S. Geodetic Survey (USGS).

Following its disastrous major eruption in 1980 that killed 57 people, Mount St. Helens remained silent until Oct. 2004, when the volcano began a nerve-jangling stretch of periodic blasts of steam and ash, and lava flows that lasted until Jan. 2008.

While USGS has now lowered its volcano alert level from "Advisory" to "Normal," Mount St. Helens remains a dangerous volcano. "We know that Mount St. Helens will erupt again in the future in some mix of renewed dome building and more explosive behavior. However, at this point, we can't forecast when the next eruption will begin," said USGS scientists Cynthia Gardner in a press release.

Hoping to provide advanced warning of its next eruption, USGS conducts constant monitoring of Mount St. Helens for signs of renewed activity.

USGS lists 20 active and potentially active volcanoes in the continental United States, mostly in California, Washington State, and Oregon. Eleven of those volcanoes have erupted at least once in the last 200 years.

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