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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

How a river returns to life after a cataclysmic volcanic eruption

Entombed by debris nearly 40 years ago, a river in the northwestern United States runs again.
Downstream view of terrace development along upper North Fork Toutle River channel

The North Fork Toutle River in Washington wends through rock and sediment deposited by the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens. Credit: Kurt Spicer/USGS

The eruption of Mount St Helens in 1980 unleashed an avalanche of debris into a river in Washington. Decades of monitoring now detail the river channel’s unexpectedly complex evolution — and hint that abnormally high volumes of sediment will continue to sweep downstream indefinitely.

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Nature 568, 437 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01227-1

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