Height before eruption2,950 m
226,923Sugar cubes
1,017Condor wingspans
403Soccer goal widths
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Mount St. Helens
The eruption that reshaped a mountain in minutes/Volcanoes
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens in Washington state erupted with a lateral blast that flattened 600 square kilometers of forest in moments. The eruption blew 400 meters off the summit and triggered the largest landslide in recorded history. The mountain has been slowly rebuilding its dome ever since, a reminder that volcanoes are never truly done.
Measurements
Height after eruption2,549 m
2.5 trillionNanometers
418Boxing ring sides
Lost about 400 m of summit elevation
Eruption energy1.7 quintillion J
1.1 quintillionPopping kernels
17 sextillionKey presses
17 octillionthsSupernovae
Equivalent to about 400 megatons of TNT -- 7 times the 1883 Krakatoa figure by some estimates
Blast zone area600 million m²
375 millionTwin beds
2.3 millionTennis court areas
600 square km of forest flattened by the lateral blast
Lateral blast speed300 m/s
600Slow shopping carts
1.2Passenger jets
3.2 tenthsSound in helium
The blast wave traveled at roughly the speed of sound
Landslide volume2.8 billion m³
15.6 trillionChampagne flutes
2.8 trillionHuman stomachs
467 quadrillionTeardrops
Largest recorded landslide in history: 2.8 cubic km
Ash column height24,400 m
81,333Lily pad diameters
106,087Wine glass heights
Ash rose to about 24 km in the first minutes