MOUNT ST. HELENS NATIONAL VOLCANIC MONUMENT, Wash., Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Mount St. Helens erupted moderately Monday, sending clouds of steam and ash above the crater rim and drifting downwind.
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey characterized the eruption as more of a "steam event" that took place almost entirely at the surface. Some hot lava worked its way underneath the glacier inside the crater and turned some of the snow into steam, which evaporated into a cloud several thousand feet high.
Indications are that additional eruptions are possible, scientists said, though on a small scale.
"There is pretty good evidence that we've got something hot coming to the surface," USGS scientist Willie Scott told reporters near the site in southern Washington state.
The subsurface activity, he said, could result either in the building of a hard lava dome in the center of the volcano's crater, or an "explosive event." He cautioned, however, that whatever happened would not be nearly on the scale of the major eruption of May 1980.
The 1980 eruption lifted nearly a quarter-mile off the top of Mount St. Helens, flattened large trees miles away from the blast site, deposited ash over hundreds of square miles and killed 57 people.
