Discovering The Hidden World of Mount St  Helens – Dr  Keith Swenson
Channel: Apologetics Forum of Snohomish County
Date: 2021-04-24

May 18, 2020 marked the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens. This catastrophic event, in a matter of minutes, produced a 230-square-mile area of destruction, which became known as the ‘blast zone.’ Within its confines, forests, meadows, wetlands, streams, and lakes were severely cataclysmed. Initial predictions from scientists called for a very prolonged and difficult recovery period . However, four decades have now passed and the return of plants and animals to the Mount St. Helens landscape has far exceeded expectations. How has this happened? What behind-the-scenes organisms and processes have produced the healing we observe at the mountain?

Dr. Keith Swenson will give a new power point presentation detailing several little known vignettes of recovery in the blast zone. Through this program, he will explore the apparent design in the Mount St. Helens ecosystem and also relate the observed recovery to global restoration following Noah’s Flood.

Dr. Keith Swenson is a retired medical doctor who now teaches courses in biology and geology at Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon. He also served for twenty years as President of Portland’s Design Science Association and was on the board of the Seven Wonders Museum near Mount St. Helens. Keith especially enjoys leading field trips and has taken thousands to Mount St. Helens, the Columbia Gorge, Northwest forests and the Grand Canyon. He has co-led, with Dr. Steve Austin, periodic trips into the “Little Grand Canyon” at Mount St. Helens. Keith has a B.S. in Zoology from the University of Idaho and an M.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He and his wife, Connie, have four grown children.

A good summary of the recovery of the Mount St. Helens area after the devastation of the eruption in May 1980 is described in this article by Swenson and Catchpoole on the creation.com website. The unexpected rapid bounce back provides us insight into how the world recovered from Noah’s Flood.