Dixy Lee Ray
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Dixy Lee Ray was an American academic, scientist, and politician who served as the 17th governor of Washington from 1977 to 1981. Variously described as idiosyncratic and "ridiculously smart," she was the state's first female governor and was in office during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. She was a supporter of atomic energy.
Dixy Lee Ray
At the age of 12, Ray became the youngest girl to summit Mount Rainier.
Dixy Lee Ray presents the Pacific Science Center's "Arches of Science" award to Nobel Laureate Glenn Seaborg in 1968. At the time Seaborg was Chair of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a position Ray would hold several years later.
Ray speaking with Robert Sachs, director of the Argonne National Laboratory, circa 1974
1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
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On March 27, 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major explosive eruption took place on May 18, 1980, at 8:32 am. The eruption, which had a volcanic explosivity index of 5, was the first to occur in the contiguous United States since the much smaller 1915 eruption of Lassen Peak in California. It has often been declared the most disastrous volcanic eruption in U.S. history.
Photograph of the eruption column, May 18, 1980, taken by Austin Post
Mount St. Helens from Monitor Ridge, this image shows the cone of devastation, the huge crater open to the north, the posteruption lava dome inside, and Crater Glacier surrounding the lava dome. The small photo on the left was taken from Spirit Lake before the eruption and the small photo on the right was taken after the eruption from roughly the same place. Spirit Lake can also be seen in the larger image, as well as Mount Rainier and Mount Adams.
USGS photo showing a pre-avalanche eruption on April 10
Photo showing the bulge growing due to a cryptodome on April 27