Burke Museum event explores Mount St. Helens

Published 5:32 pm Friday, May 14, 2010

Tuesday is the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, described as the biggest geological event in the Pacific Northwest in our lifetime.

The Burke Museum on the University of Washington campus will present a free evening of talks, displays and refreshments from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday centered on the 1980 event.

Volcanologist Olivier Bachmann of UW Earth and Space Sciences draws from his studies of Mount St. Helens and other eruptions around the world for a presentation, “The Catastrophic Eruption of Mount St. Helens,” at 6:15 p.m.

Scott Shane of the National Park Service will talk at 7 p.m about his experiences after the eruption. His talk is “Into the Blast Zone.”

Rod Crawford, curator of arachnids for the Burke, will present “It’s Raining Spiders” at 7:30 p.m. Crawford’s talk will be about some of the creatures who survived the blast and how some came to repopulate the area.

Rogert del Moral, of the UW biology department, will discuss what researchers have found out about the recovery of ecosystems in “How Mount St. Helens Changed Our Understanding of Primary Succession” at 8:15. Primary succession is the growth of an ecosystem over time.

The Burke Museum is at NE 45th Street and 17th Avenue NE on the UW campus, Seattle.

Call 206-543-5590 or go online to www.burkemuseum.org for more information.