As of May 5, 2005, the highest point on the new dome was 7,675 feet (2339 meters), 688 feet (210 meters) below the highest point of the volcano. It contained approximately 58 million cubic yards (44.6 million cubic meters) of material

On October 1, 2004, Mount St. Helens sent steam and ash into the air for approximately 25 minutes, yielding evacuation orders from nearby areas. Mount St. Helens vented steam, ash and rock once more into the air.

Caption: On May 18, 1980, at 8:32 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake shook Mount St. Helens. The bulge and surrounding area slid away in a gigantic rockslide and debris avalanche, releasing pressure, and triggering a major pumice and ash eruption of the volcano. Thirteen-hundred feet (400 meters) of the peak collapsed or blew outwards. As a result, 24 square miles (62 square kilometers) of valley was filled by a debris avalanche, 250 square miles (650 square kilometers) of recreation, timber, and private lands were damaged by a lateral blast, and an estimated 200 million cubic yards (150 million cubic meters) of material was deposited directly by lahars (volcanic mudflows) into the river channels. Fifty-seven people were killed or are still missing. (May 18, 1980, by Austin Post, USGS)

Mount St. Helens is an active stratovolcano in Skamania County, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located 96 miles (154 km) south of Seattle and 53 miles (85 km) northeast of Portland, Oregon. The mountain is part of the Cascade Range and was initially known as Louwala-Clough which means "smoking or fire mountain" in the language of the Klickitats. It was named for British diplomat Lord St Helens who was a friend of George Vancouver who made a survey of the area in the late 18th century.