STEAMED UP

AS PLUMES OF STEAM SHOT OUT OF ITS horseshoe-shaped crater last week, Mount St. Helens seemed on the verge of a spectacular eruption. And this time the whole world was watching–hundreds through binoculars at safe vantage points, millions more through hourly reports on cable TV. But no one was watching more closely than the scientists monitoring the instruments scattered across the mountain’s ash-coated flanks and half-mile-wide lava dome. This early warning network was installed after the 1980 eruption that blew off the top 1,300 ft. of the mountain, destroying tens of thousands of acres of forest and killing 57 people. Although geophysicists expressed confidence that Mount St. Helens will not erupt with anything close to the explosive power it displayed 24 years ago, they know better than most that the earth’s primal forces do not always behave in predictable ways. Which is one of the reasons we can’t stop watching.