The result of these eruptions is a towering mass of rock called the lava dome. If the mountain has been slow to rebuild, the land around it has responded more quickly. Animals, plants and the elements are working together to regenerate the landscape. Pocket gophers dig through the ash and kick original soil to the surface. Deer and elk droppings fertilize sterile soils.
New plants attract web-spinning spiders, which flow in on the wind.
Even gases from the volcano produced acid rain that helped break down the soil into something plants can use. Biologists are expecting the cloak of green to expand dramatically throughout the blast zone over the next few years. Humankind is doing its part. Private and government timberland owners have planted young trees throughout the blast zone, except in the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, where nature will be allowed to heal without human intervention. The Army Corps of Engineers mounted history's largest dredging operation to clear rivers of silt.