| Widespread landscape disturbance by the cataclysmic 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens abruptly increased sediment supply in surrounding watersheds. The magnitude and duration of the redistribution of sediment deposited by the eruption as well as decades- to centuries-old sediment remobilized from storage have varied chiefly with the style of disturbance. Posteruption suspended sediment transport has been greater and more persistent from zones of channel disturbance than from zones of hillslope disturbance. Despite the severe landscape disturbances caused by the eruption, relationships between discharge magnitudes and frequencies and suspended sediment transport have been remarkably consistent. -- Major, 2004 |
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