This time-lapse movie of the growing lava dome at Mount St. Helens is based on daily photographs taken by an automated digital camera system on Sugar Bowl Dome, located at the crater mouth about 2.3 km (1.4 miles) north-northeast of the vent. The Sugar Bowl "DomeCam", designed by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and loaned to us for our eruption, was installed on October 10, 2004. It takes one image every 3 minutes and relays one image back to the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) every hour.
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The movie covers the time period from June 16 to August 16, 2005, and shows dramatic changes in the new dome during that two-month interval. A smooth-sided, light gray whaleback feature grew upward and southward in June and early July, then largely collapsed in a series of rockfalls in mid-July. A new, nearly vertical lava spine emerged to the west (to the right in this view of August 16 below) of the older whaleback in early August, allowing the remnants of the older whaleback to sag and slide down slope, back toward the vent. The volume of the new dome that has grown since October 2004 was about 54 million cubic meters (71 million cubic yards) in mid-June, and about 57 million cubic meters (75 million cubic yards) in mid-July. The lava dome that grew in the crater from 1980 to 1986 is visible in the lower right portion of the frame.
More images from the Sugar Bowl Remote Camera can be seen at
Cascade Volcano Observatory's
Sugar Bowl Remote Camera webpage.
See images of installation of the camera, dome growth, and problems during the winter months.
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MSH04_remote_camera_on_sugarbowl_dome_10-12-04.jpg
Remote still camera, on loan from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) in place on Sugar Bowl. Mount St. Helens' lava dome is in the background. USGS photograph taken on 12 October 2004 by Gene Iwatsubo.
MSH05_dome_from_sugarbowl_camera_08-16-05.jpg
New dome as seen from the remote camera on Sugar Bowl. The 2004-2005 dome is within Mount St. Helens' crater on the left, with the current spine almost centered. The 1980-1986 lava dome is on the right behind the slope of Sugar Bowl. The pink in the upper right is camera distortion.
USGS Photograph taken August 16, 2005.
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