Scientists say pocket gophers helped rebuild microbial life and plant growth after the Mount St. Helens eruption.
A study of the mountain's recovering soils suggests that one brief gopher experiment in the early 1980s helped restart an underground recovery process after the famous 1980 eruption. The animals did not rebuild the landscape by themselves, but their digging appears to have moved fungi, bacteria, and older soil toward the surface, giving plants a better shot at coming back.
A mountain changed in minutes
On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted after an earthquake and a huge landslide tore open the volcano's north side. The disaster killed 57 people, leveled forests, and devastated about 230 square miles, leaving whole slopes coated with hot volcanic debris.
For plants, the damage was not just what people could see from the air. In the Pumice Plain, a broad area made by fast-moving volcanic flows, fresh ash and broken rock covered the old ground so deeply that many useful microbes were buried or destroyed. Tephra, the name for ash and shattered volcanic rock, is not the same as healthy backyard soil.
Comment: Even though the mainstream media and politicians will try to make a link between El Niño and man made climate change, it just doesn't exist. The sun has a much greater role on earth's climate than it is given credit for in climate models. Yet, we will only hear that humans are to blame in what can be described as an anti-human aka alien driven agenda.