Selects: When Mount St. Helens Blew Its Top

Summary

Stuff You Should Know: When Mount St. Helens Blew Its Top Episode Release Date: January 25, 2025

Introduction

In this riveting episode of Stuff You Should Know, hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant delve deep into the catastrophic eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980. Through a blend of scientific insight, historical context, and personal anecdotes, the episode provides a comprehensive exploration of one of the most significant volcanic events in modern history.

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1. Geological Background of Mount St. Helens

Timestamp: [06:01]

Josh and Chuck begin by explaining that Mount St. Helens is a stratovolcano, formed approximately 40,000 years ago as part of the Cascade Arc in the Pacific Northwest. Stratovolcanoes are characterized by their conical shape, built up by layers of hardened lava, tephra, pumice, and volcanic ash. The mountain's formation is driven by tectonic activity, specifically the subduction of a younger tectonic plate beneath an older one, which generates magma that seeks pathways to the Earth's surface.

Notable Quote: "Mount St. Helens is part of the Cascade Arc arranged there in the Pacific Northwest... it's one of those Coney Mountains formed by subduction." – Chuck Bryant [07:06]

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2. Historical Eruptions and Indigenous Legends

Timestamp: [10:37]

The discussion transitions to the mountain's eruptive history, highlighting that the most significant eruption before 1980 occurred around 4,000 years ago. This event was so impactful that it became embedded in indigenous folklore, particularly among the Puyallup people, who referred to the mountain as Luit L O O W I T. Legends recount the transformation of humans into mountains, emphasizing the cultural memory of volcanic activity.

Notable Quote: "We do not know, but maybe let's call this one Lewet... legends from the Puyallup and other tribes describe this enormous eruption." – Josh Clark [12:07]

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3. Signs of Impending Eruption and Scientific Monitoring

Timestamp: [19:35]

By the mid-20th century, Mount St. Helens had been meticulously studied, with volcanologists like David Johnston and Don Swanson monitoring its activity. In 1975, scientists warned that a significant eruption was likely in the 20th century. This proved prescient as seismic activity increased dramatically in the years leading up to 1980.

Notable Quote: "Mount St. Helens was very likely going to erupt in the 20th century... and we did eventually set up what they called a red zone." – Chuck Bryant [19:35]

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4. The 1980 Eruption: Sequence of Events

Timestamp: [28:34]

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted in a manner that defied typical volcanic eruptions. Instead of the magma spewing from the summit, a massive lateral blast occurred due to a preceding earthquake-triggered landslide—the largest in recorded history. This sudden removal of the mountain's north flank released immense pressure, causing the volcano to blow out sideways with a force equivalent to a 24-megaton blast.

Notable Quote: "Mount St. Helens had been a long history of activity. But on May 18, everything went boom... It was described as a lateral blast, unlike any typical eruption." – Josh Clark [28:34]

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5. Personal Accounts and Immediate Impact

Timestamp: [32:27]

The eruption was witnessed firsthand by geologists Dorothy Stoefl and her husband, who were flying over the mountain. Dorothy's harrowing account describes the mountain's north half "churning" and "sliding away," providing invaluable documentation of the event.

Notable Quote: "The north half of the mountain just became like fluid and slid away." – Dorothy Stoefl [32:30]

Tragically, key figures like David Johnston were caught in the blast. Johnston’s last transmission, "Vancouver, this is it," was received by a ham radio operator before vaporization occurred nearly instantaneously.

Notable Quote: "David Johnston is the only person to pick that up was a ham radio operator nearby... he was vaporized as well." – Chuck Bryant [36:02]

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6. Aftermath and Environmental Devastation

Timestamp: [43:27]

The eruption had far-reaching consequences:

• Casualties: 57 people lost their lives, many due to the porous evacuation zones allowing individuals to return prematurely.
• Environmental Impact: Spirit Lake experienced significant alterations, including a rise in elevation by 200 feet and a decrease in depth by 80 feet. The eruption also caused extensive destruction of infrastructure, obliterating 200 homes, cabins, and 200 miles of roads and railways.
• Ecological Recovery: Surprisingly, smaller organisms and plants demonstrated resilience, quickly beginning the ecosystem's rebound. Biologists noted entire communities of microbes and fungi survived, aiding in rapid ecological restoration.

Notable Quote: "Ash was raining down... carrying chunks of rock as big as a 50-story building." – Josh Clark [38:38]

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7. Long-Term Effects and Ongoing Research

Timestamp: [52:22]

Mount St. Helens continues to be a focal point for geological research. Post-eruption activities between 2004 and 2008 saw the growth of new lava domes, providing scientists with a natural laboratory to study volcanic processes. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maintains active research stations to monitor the volcano's activity, ensuring preparedness for any future eruptions.

Notable Quote: "There's amazing time-lapse footage of those four years... Mount St. Helens bounce back." – Chuck Bryant [53:01]

---

8. Cultural and Scientific Legacy

Timestamp: [45:19]

The eruption of Mount St. Helens left a lasting legacy both culturally and scientifically. Memorials like Johnston Ridge honor those who lost their lives, while the event itself has served as a critical case study in volcanology. The detailed documentation has enhanced understanding of volcanic behavior, emergency response, and ecological recovery.

Notable Quote: "Spirit Lake opened back up and the Coldwater 2 station has been renamed after David Johnston. There's an amazing memorial too." – Josh Clark [53:38]

---

Conclusion

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant encapsulate the Mount St. Helens eruption as a monumental event that intertwined natural forces with human resilience and scientific advancement. The episode not only recounts the sequence of devastating events but also highlights the enduring impact on communities, ecosystems, and the field of geology.

Final Notable Quote: "Mount St. Helens bounce back... it was a crash course for volcanologists and seismologists." – Josh Clark [44:23]

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Further Listening and Resources

For listeners eager to explore more, the hosts recommend watching the A&E special "Minute by Minute Colon: The Eruption of Mount St. Helens" and accessing various YouTube documentaries that provide additional footage and firsthand accounts.

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This summary captures the essence of the "When Mount St. Helens Blew Its Top" episode, offering a detailed yet engaging overview for those who seek to understand the complexities and ramifications of this historic volcanic eruption.

Transcript

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[Josh Clark]

Hey, everyone, it's Josh. And for this week's Sysk Selects, I've chosen our January 2023 episode on the Mount St. Helens eruption. Seems like just last year. It's a really good episode that's packed with science, action, adventure, heroics, life and death, danger. It's got it all. It's one of my favorite episodes, so I hope you enjoy it as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck. And sitting in for Jerry today is our great friend and co producer, Dave C. And the C stands for cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

So say hello, Dave. Hi, everybody.

[Josh Clark]

That's pretty. That's a really great Dave impression.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's a troll.

[Josh Clark]

He is. I always hear him as.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dave is great. I wish you all knew him. But we do, and so he's ours.

[Josh Clark]

You're going to have to take our word for it.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

Speaking of take our word for it, Chuck, I have to say, to all the people who don't know much about Mount St. Helens, prepare to have your socks knocked off or.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or your lid blown or your skin.

[Josh Clark]

Seared off of your muscle.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this is a good one. I mean, this is so bread and butter stuff. You should know it is. I don't know why. It took us almost 16 years to get to it.

[Josh Clark]

And none of that margarine stuff or low fat. It's like full milk Fat butter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

Bread and butter stuff. You should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Salted butter even.

[Josh Clark]

You like salted, huh?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it depends on what you're using it for.

[Josh Clark]

I like just plain unsalted butter. Even on a bread and butter piece of, like, bread with butter?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, mainly with, like, baking and cooking. It's like, that's when it matters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I gotcha. What's your brand?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, boy, it depends. I mean, I love to get the. I hate to be that guy, but I do love to get the local butter when we go to our farmer's market and get it from our csa.

[Josh Clark]

What's wrong with that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't know. Can't just say parquet, can you?

[Josh Clark]

Right. You must be a social justice warrior. You buy local butter.

[Chuck Bryant]

I do like that. What's the stuff? The Irish butter in the grocery store.

[Josh Clark]

That's my brand. Kerrygold.

[Chuck Bryant]

Kerrygold. That's good too.

[Josh Clark]

Like, I've researched it. Like, I've literally researched butter. Cause I wanted to get the most bang for my buck. And it is at the top of basically every list. It's good of, like, any butter of any kind. It's really, really good butter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I totally agree. I love Kerrygold. I take that stuff camping.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I carry it around in my pocket.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I like that you can get a tub. It's a smaller tub, but I do like a spreadable tub as opposed to a stick.

[Josh Clark]

I haven't seen the tub. We have a stick because we have a cute little butter dish that we use. So we use the sticks. So anyway, back to Mount St. Helens, the episode today. I was four years old when this happened, so I mean, I didn't know what was going on, but I imagine you were like, holy cow. This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on my tv.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I was nine and I remember it being a big deal. But it's funny, when I was researching this and then watching, there's a really, really great thing on YouTube that I recommend that A and E put out years ago. It had to be. It was called Minute by Minute Colon. The eruption of Mount St. Helens. Really gripping stuff as A and E used to do. You know, they probably still do that kind of stuff, but I don't know, all of the media around it, I was thinking, like, man. And I don't know if it was more regional or if it truly was nationwide, but I remember the eruption, but I didn't remember, like, the six weeks leading up to it, which was a very big deal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Although I think it was more of like a regional thing for the lead up. And then also, if you were a geologist, a volcanologist, a seismologist, anything that had to do with volcanoes erupting or mountains, then it would have been a big deal to you, too. And it definitely attracted them from far and wide. And because there was so much warning and it was able to. By it, I mean, Mount St. Helens was able to kind of draw to it like a magnet. All of these amazingly well trained researchers, they were there when it went off. And it's probably the most best documented volcano in history because of that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, because like you said, Mount St. Helens is basically saying it's coming. Everyone, would you like to document this? I'm telling you again, it's coming. And I'll show you in lots of different scary ways that it's coming. And people left, people stayed, people came there, people laughed, seismologists, people cried. Like tourists came to see this thing. So, for sure, let's get into it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so just a real quick refresher. We've done volcanoes, and I think we've done super volcanoes, too. Cause that sounds like us.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, 2010 was volcanoes. 2017 was super volcanoes.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So we talked a lot about how volcanoes work in those episodes. So if you want to know a lot more in depth, go check those out. But just as a refresher for the specific kind of volcano that Mount St. Helens is, it's a stratovolcano, and it's created when one younger plate is subducted under an older plate. And as the younger plate goes down into the bowels of the Earth, all of the rock it carries with it gets heated up. Same with water, too. And that stuff travels upward because it's less dense than the surrounding mantle down below. And as it gets closer and closer to the crust, it wants to pop out of there. Yeah, but it can't necessarily. Sometimes it can, and when it can, it just spews out all sorts of molten lava. And that builds the volcano in a kind of a cone shape, which is what Mount St. Helens was up until May 18, 1980.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's a part of the Cascade Arc arranged there in the Pacific Northwest. And all of this happened, geologically speaking, pretty quickly. It happened over the course of about 40,000 years in the case of Mount St. Helens, which is pretty speedy. And Ed helped us out with this. We did a great job on this article. And Ed points out that in the Pacific Northwest, that's why you see so many sort of Coney Mountains like that, is because of this Cascade arc and how these mountains were formed, you know, not too long ago, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, 40,000 years ago, maybe less.

[Chuck Bryant]

40,000 for St. Helens. And I think the whole arc is less than 100.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So the whole thing that's driving Mount St. Helens, and apparently also there's some other, I guess, volcanic mountains in the area, like Adams. I think Mount Adams is one as well. Yeah, There's a magma chamber somewhere under there. I think possibly miles and miles below the surface. But under normal circumstances, like I said, when a stratovolcano is formed, the lava just kind of is able to find cracks in the crust and it's released through there, and it builds the mountain up slowly and slowly. But if there's not a crack in the crust, as in the case where Mount St. Helens is, that magma starts to back up, it hits the crust and it starts to back up below. And all of a sudden you have a lot of stuff going on that makes things go kaboom when the right set of circumstances happens.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, this is pretty notable. This magma chamber is, well, is and was quite large. And like you said, it's looking for a place to go. But if it doesn't have a place to go, what'll happen? And as you'll see, this is what happened in the case of Mount St. Helens is it starts bulging. And the mountain, if you're a geologist, it's super exciting to see this happen, even though it's very scary and dangerous. But when a geologist sees an actual mountain start to bulge out in a direction, and we're talking hundreds of feet of bulge over the course of a pretty short period of time, then it's pretty like it's a pretty notable thing. And that's exactly what was happening in the case of the magma chamber there in Washington.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like, this pressure is building up so much, it's causing a boil on the mountain. Yeah, the mountain grows a goiter, basically, and that's just full of pressure and magma just waiting to go off. It doesn't always go off. And in fact, Mount St. Helens had two bulges, also called cryptodomes, which is pretty awesome from previous volcanic eruptions. One was called Goat Rocks Bulge, and then the other one was called the Sugar Bowl Bulge. And they just never, like, the magma found its way out other ways, but the bulge was left. This is a new bulge. And like you said, it was growing, I think, about six feet a day. Every day it kept growing another six feet, which is really fast for a mountain to grow. And that was one of the big signs initially that something was going on. And one more thing, before we start to get into Mount St. Helens itself, Chuck, I think we need to say like Mount St. Helens was big. It was a big eruption, but it was not the biggest eruption Mount St. Helens has ever had. And apparently the biggest eruption it's ever had came just about 4,000 years ago. Which is within traditional like folk tale memory.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean it had been an active volcano for 40,000 years but the big one before 1980 was. Yeah, like you said, I was trying to look at a specific year, but let's just say 4,000 years ago.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because once you get back that far.

[Josh Clark]

You know, who cares?

[Chuck Bryant]

Who cares? But it became, like you said, part of folklore. The indigenous people there, especially the Puyallup people, called the mountain Luit L O O W I T and there was a Lewitt Brewing Company. So I wanted to shout them out. This is one of those things where I thought, I wonder why. Because there's been such a push to change names of things over the past like decade or so. This is one that was, it seems so like sort of egregious that we should call it Lewitt and not Mount St. Helens that I'm pretty curious. I'm sure there's been pushes over the years to get it changed. But the Europeans of course named it Mount St. Helens in 1792 after Captain George Vancouver. If that name rings a bell, it should gave the name of it because of a diplomat named Alan Fitzherbert. Didn't call it Fitzherbert Peak or anything like that because his noble title was Baron St. Helens, thank God. But here's the rub is that Alan Fitzherbert never even saw Mount St. Helens, the mountain named after him. So like, I don't know, maybe, maybe let's call this one Lewet.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think that's a great idea actually. And the reason they call it Lewitt, she was named after a like a famous volcanic fire tender woman. And Lewitt and a couple of other men who fell in love with her and fought for her became Lewitt became Mount St. Helens, or Lewitt, if you want to call it that. And then the other men who were fighting for her became Mount Hood and Mount Adams. They were smited by the Creator God and turned into mountains for fighting. And there's legends, not just from the Puyallup, but other indigenous tribes around the area that something really big happened. And it looks like what it is is a geomyth which we've talked about before. And I think the great floods episode that has been handed down generation after generation. That describes this enormous eruption 4,000 years ago.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty good stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And it was a big eruption, too. There's just one other thing. There is a layer of tephra of basically volcanic ash and debris and stuff that is so thick and so wide, it goes up into British Columbia and 62 miles away from Mount Saint Helens, it's still 20 inches thick, almost 2ft thick of ash. 62 miles away. That's how big that 4,000 year ago eruption was.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's huge. And all this to say that Mount St. Helens, which has an S, by the way. Did you know that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I did.

[Chuck Bryant]

You keep saying Helen. I just wondered.

[Josh Clark]

I'm being short because I don't want to take up too much time talking about certain things.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's good. That reminds me of the guy in college who fell on the sidewalk and his books splayed out and then he acted like he was reading.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I love that story. Forgot about him.

[Chuck Bryant]

All this to say is that Mount St. Helens had been had a long history of activity. So it's not like anyone ever thought, well, that thing is done and it's never gonna happen again.

[Josh Clark]

No, definitely not. Because Also in the 19th century, there was a lot of eruptions too. There's a painting by a Canadian artist named Paul Kane who painted an 1847 eruption. So, I mean, starting in the 19th century, Mount St. Helens was documented pretty clearly scientifically too, as being an eruptive volcano, a disruptive volcano. You can almost say.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, shall we take a break? Yeah. That's a nice prelude.

[Josh Clark]

I think so, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll be back right after this Burning stuff with Joshua.

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[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so we got a nice background on Mount St. Helens. It had been very active for about or on and off active for 40,000 years, including, I believe the last sort of big One was in 1857. Not too long after that, in 1908, about a million acres of land became part of Columbia National Forest, which was hence renamed Gifford Pinchot or Pinchot. I never know how to say that.

[Josh Clark]

The Bronson Pinchot National Forest National Forest.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that was in 1949. And Mount St. Helens is inside that national forest. All this is sort of a long way of saying it wasn't like super populated. It didn't have, wasn't surrounded by neighborhoods and suburbs and stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But there was something, or is still something called Spirit Lake there near the base of the mountain, which is. They have like youth camps there. People had cabins here and there. There were recreational activities that all, all over the place. So it's not like no one was there, but it wasn't heavily populated.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Well put. So the whole thing starts, actually even before the whole thing started. And I saw in 1975 that two volcanologists published a paper saying that it was very likely Mount St. Helens was going to erupt in the 20th century at some point. Like a big one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And five years later, on March 20, 1980, the whole thing was kicked off by a 4.0 earthquake, which is nothing to sneeze at. And it was at the mountain. Like this earthquake took place at the mountain. And all of a sudden, within five days there were quake storms. There was 24 quakes of 4.0 or greater within eight hours.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh man.

[Josh Clark]

When a volcano starts doing that and you're detecting it, that's when the geologists come running from far and wide.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So they, you know, the word gets out and they did come running from far and wide and they set up camp there at various places other just sort of, as I learned from watching this A and E special, that there are like volcano chasers even that they hear about this stuff, they're fascinated by it, I guess just sort of amateur geo enthusiasts. And people started kind of coming in there because they got wind that something may be brewing at Mount St. Helens, including, and this is, you know, there are all kinds of people we could feature, story wise. But one gentleman we are going to feature. His name was David Johnston and he was a volcanologist at the usgs, the United States Geographical Survey. And he was one of the. There were some great interviews with him in this A and E special. He was a very young guy, super excited to be there. And he was one of the ones kind of sounding the alarm along with his partner, this guy named Don Swanson, about, hey, like, you know, the S is getting real here, everybody. And it looks like thing like people need to start leaving.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like the thing is, is there the people who did live on the mountain were not the kind of folk who listened to like, you know, the government, college boys or the government to be told like, leave your home. And then also there was those youth groups that were like, you're Gonna ruin our week at Spirit Lake. There was also Weyerhauser.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're hoping to get to first base.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. It's like a roller rink over there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then there was Weyerhaeuser, who had a contract to be able to log on the mountain. They definitely didn't want to have to shut down operations. So there's a lot of pressure, a surprising amount of pressure, you know, more than you would think, to keep the mountain open. And David Johnston and Don Swanson and some of the other colleagues were like, you really can't do this. And they managed to convince the governor of Washington that it was the right move. And then later on, as we'll see, there was even more pressure to reopen because things didn't go as fast as everyone thought, and they managed to push that back as well. And as a result, David Johnston is frequently credited for saving thousands of lives, potentially, which is pretty cool. I mean, and everything I've seen about him, he was a genuinely great person. And also, like, a really great pioneer in volcanology, too.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. They did eventually set up what they called a red zone, and a lot of people did evacuate. There were some notable people who didn't. Certainly, we need to mention Harry Truman. Obviously not the president, but he was this old codger who ran the lodge there, and he became a folk hero because he famously thumbed his nose and stayed and said, you know, I'm a part of this place. It's a part of me. If the mountain goes, I'm gonna go with it. Art Carney played him in the movie version. He got a lot of media attention along with his 16 cats, which is the only part of the story. Like, hey, man, I'm all for people evacuating to keep people safe, but I'm also like, some old mountain man wants to stay up there and go down with a volcano. That's his right. But send the cats away. Don't say, like, I'm gonna go down and kill these 16 cats at the same time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's kind of like being buried in, like, you know, medieval times and having your live horse buried with you.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I just. I don't know, man. Once I heard about the cats, because I was all into this guy, right? And then I heard about the cats. I was like, oh, dude, you should have at least set the cats away.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. No way. Not. Not a lodge codger. So Harry Truman will come back in. This is Harry R. Truman, by the way. Everybody said his middle initial to differentiate him.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right?

[Josh Clark]

He'll come back in later. But so this the last thing that we happened on the mountain. March 25, in eight hours there's 24, 4.0 or greater magnitude earthquakes. And that brought everybody running. This whole thing was so perfectly planned that on the day of the eruption there was the mineral and gem show in Yakima, like I think less than 100 miles away from Mount St. Helens. So anybody who had anything to do with geology just happened to be in the area or was purposefully in the area.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

And then on March 27, it's just getting more and more and more. There was an actual eruption, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So this was, I mean, compared to what eventually ended up happening, you could call this a sort of mini eruption. Even though it sent, it made a big boom. Apparently it was a pretty cloudy day, so it wasn't super visible. But the ash column went up 6,500ft into the air.

[Josh Clark]

That's nothing to sneeze at.

[Chuck Bryant]

And a new crater formed at the summit which grew to about 1600ft wide. So it was a major thing. There was another one on the 28th, again throwing ash into the air. And this is like basically from that point through the big one in mid May, it was just constant warning, constant upheaval, mudslides, avalanches, craters growing. And like the mountain is saying like it's gonna happen. People, this is not a false alarm until things calm down. And that's what you were talking about earlier, like things kind of settle down on what was that?

[Josh Clark]

Like May, around the 15th of May?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, around 15th of May. To where the people got antsy that were evacuated and said, hey listen, we want to go back and check on our stuff. And the governor eventually was like, all right, I think at the time, and I think Washington still is a little bit of one of those like not quite live free or die, but you know, like, all right, listen, these people pay taxes. They want to go back to their homes, sign a waiver that you're not going to sue us and let them go back there. And that's what they did.

[Josh Clark]

They did. There's footage of them signing waivers on the hood of a car with some obvious state lawyer in a three piece suit handing people a pen and being like, sign here, it's really hilarious. But they did. Some people started to trickle in and that's actually why there were, you know, I think we ended up with 57 casualties, 57 people died. And that was one reason why it was actually that high, could have been less. But people were allowed to trickle back in. They still Kept like a perimeter. But I think it was kind of porous. If you wanted to get through, you could get through. And there are stories in that minute by minute episode of People. There's this one backpacker who is probably hilarious at parties because he makes, like a funny. A funny voice for the police when the police is talking, when he's recreating a conversation he had, it was funny. He snuck through with friends. There are a lot of people on the mountain that otherwise might not have been had. They kept it closed. But they did open it up a little bit. And it was because nothing had happened for a little while. And then about three days later, everything happened. You said S was getting real. This is when the S hit the fan.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, I mean, just prior to this, I guess let's back up one half second and let you know about what happened with David Johnson and Don Swanson. They had moved from their initial base at Coldwater 1, which was about, I think, eight or nine miles away, to their second station, which was called Coldwater 2, which is about five to six miles from the mountain. And notably it was on the northeast side of the mountain, which turned out to be the wrong spot to be. But, you know, these guys knew what was going on. They know it's a dangerous job. And apparently they were swapping, taking shifts. And Don Swanson got the call from Johnston and he said, hey, listen, I've got tonight and tomorrow, if you come and relieve me the next day. And then on May 18, 1980, is when Johnston was there, when everything went boom.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I think there have been other colleagues and grad students and everything around Coldwater, too. And Johnston sent him away. He's like, this is outside the red zone. It's still potentially dangerous. There's no reason for more than just one of us to be here at a time. So you guys go. So at 8:32am on May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens, like, blew up. And there's like a typical idea that people have of a volcano going off, and most of the time it's shooting like a huge thing of ash and magma straight into the air from its top.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But that is not what happened with Mount St. Helens. Mount St. Helens was a very specific and unusual type of eruption because it didn't go out of the top, it came out of the side and it came out in what was known as a lateral blast eruption.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So, you know, like we said earlier, that pressure is building up a lot under the surface. There's a lot of moisture down there. Some of it was like you mentioned, from that initial plate subduction. That's called magmatic water. Some of it is just regular old groundwater from rain and snow and everything. Because it is the mountains. That's called meteoric water. And all of that stuff is just heating up. It's got pressure from below. Cause it's heating. It's got pressure from above. Cause all of that weight of the rock is just pushing it down. And all of this magma is just like boiling under there. But, and I know we talked about this before, I guess it was in one of the volcano episodes. But it's not allowed to turn to steam because there's no room for it. Like steam is expansive and it can't expand. So it's just this superheated beyond the boiling point level of liquid that's just distributed all throughout the, the upper half and notably sort of the north side of this mountain.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that, that created that bulge that kept growing by about six feet a day. That was scary. It is because like it's as violent as, as you can imagine that a bulge, something that could make a bulge on the side of a mountain would be.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And so under, under other circumstances, an eruption where volcano explodes out of the top, like you typically think of that pressure, that magma is going to basically force the top of the mountain open and that's how it's going to explode. This is not what happened with Mount St. Helens. That kind of, I guess the hump was on one side. It was on the north flank, wasn't it?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So it was on the north flank. And the thing that kicked off Mount St. Helens eruption wasn't the volcano. It was actually an earthquake in the volcano. And that earthquake caused the largest landslide in recorded history on Earth. More than half of a square mile of Mount St. Helens suddenly vanished away. It just suddenly dropped off the side. The north side of the mountain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And it's like you should really go check out the footage of this stuff. It's some of the most amazing like natural geologic disaster footage I've ever seen. Just to see this mountain and then especially A and E thing to see people interviewed describing like seeing this with their eyeballs. It was just like, it was incomprehensible what they were witnessing. Like a mountain that large and part of it just going away immediately.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And one of the reasons they were able to witness it and we have such great documentation is because at 8:32am a pair of geologists, husband and wife geologists, happened to be flying in a plane because they'd hired a plane to go look at Mount St. Helens because they'd heard that, you know, there's some stuff going on. And they happened to make one more pass right as the mountain. That earthquake dropped the side of the mountain. They were like right above it in a plane, as a matter of fact.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Where's her quote? Should we read that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is Dorothy Stoefl in 2019. She said the whole north half of the mountain that we were flying just 500ft above began churning and a mile long fracture shot across the mountain faster than our minds could absorb. The north half of the mountain just became like fluid and slid away.

[Josh Clark]

Amazing. I saw somebody else describe it as like a zipper opening along the mountain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you know, there were amateur photographers around for some of this stuff. Some of these hikers, like that guy you mentioned that was telling the story in funny voices and volcano chasers, like they got some. Like one guy got like 22 pictures in a row and this is when it eventually blew. The other guy got like six or eight pictures. There was a family camping with their two young daughters.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that guy, they were on the north side, well below it, but within the range. And he was like speaking to how it didn't blow from the top. He said it looked like somebody shot a shotgun out of the side of this mountain, pointed at us. So ash, ash was raining down, but it was raining like at people and less down from the sky, right?

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. It wasn't going up and then coming back down. It was coming straight at you if you were anywhere north of the mountain.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And the reason why the north of the mountain was so dangerous is because that's where that hump had been. That's also where the earthquake moved a good portion of the mountain, which meant that all that pressure that was keeping that pressurized, superheated water from boiling under the mountain was suddenly exposed. It was. That pressure was gone. And so all of that incredibly hot water flash heated into steam. And when that happens, that expands. Like you said, the reason that one of the reasons steam can't exist in that situation is because it's too expansive. When it does have the chance to expand, it does so with incredible force.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And. And that's what happened. That's why Mount St. Helens blew out the side rather than the top, because there had been a weakening in the pressure that allowed all that to just blow out and blow out. It did.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I mean, it was. If you look at it, it looks almost like a controlled demolition blast or something. It definitely doesn't look like any kind of volcano blast that you might think of in your head. It happened kind of all at once. And it was a 24 megaton blast, which I know everyone always tries to compare it to like hiroshima. It was 1600 times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

[Josh Clark]

Good Lord. But I mean that's what it would take to move 0.6 square or cubic miles of mountain all of a sudden too, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that blast, Chuck, that 24 megaton blast, it was described as like fast moving cloud of heat and stones moving at some points pretty close to the mountain. 300 miles an hour, heated to like 660 degrees Fahrenheit. I think that's like 380 degrees Celsius just blowing northward away from the mountain. And everything within eight miles of that, of the mountain was in that blast zone. And if you'll recall correctly, David Johnston's Coldwater 2 camp was within about five miles.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he obviously didn't make it. They found, I think they found pieces of his trailer. Like a decade later. He had time to send out one signal which was over his radio. Vancouver. Vancouver, this is it. The only person to pick that up was a ham radio operator nearby and they renamed that area Johnston Ridge in his honor. Obviously Harry Truman perished along with those 16 cats. And he was close enough to where I saw that they said that he and everything around him was basically instantly vaporized. Like he wouldn't have felt anything. It would have happened. His death and vaporization would have happened in less than a second.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I have the impression the same thing happened to David Johnston and also that that ham radio operator who was volunteering to kind of document it, he documented David Johnston getting covered up. He said the, he said, gentlemen, the camper in the car that's sitting over to the south of me, he was talking about David Johnston is covered, is going to hit me too. And that was Jerry Martin, that ham radio operator. And that was his last transmission. He was vaporized as well. Essentially everything, everything north of the mountain within eight miles was just destroyed, just destroyed. Like entire hundred foot trees that were like 1012ft in diameter, just completely flattened and also denuded of any bark on the way as well. And this was just a blast that the landslide that was created from the earthquake that initially triggered the eruption that had some incredible effects as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, because what you've got, you know, beyond this avalanche happening is you've got all of a sudden all this heat happens in a place where there's a lot of snow. So that snow melts, all that glacier ice melts and you have flooding and you have mudslides. And you have a word that I had never even heard of before Ed included it in here, which was lahar, which sounds like just a mudslide on steroids. Like a mudslide carrying ammunition with it. And this is just raining down everywhere and like causing a path of destruction that hasn't been seen in like modern times in this country.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was like it had so much power, Chuck, that Sly did that one part of it was carrying chunks of rock as big as 558ft or 170 meters across.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

That's as big as a 50 story building. It was moving rocks that size just fast as you can imagine down the mountain into the valleys. And I saw it described as if you were watching it from a ridge, as some people were like far away, you would see the cloud or the debris starting to come at you. It would disappear into a valley and then all of a sudden it would come up over the ridge and keep, keep going. It was, it was just filling valleys with rocks and debris. It's just, it's, it's unimaginable trying to grasp what happened. And it's even crazier that some people are actually there watching this happen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Crazy.

[Josh Clark]

It is crazy. You want to take a break?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. We'll take a break and talk a little bit more about the after effects right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Learning stuff with Joshua Shar. Stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Jon Stewart is back at the Daily show, and he's bringing his signature wit.

[Josh Clark]

And insight straight to your ears with.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Dive into John's unique take on the biggest topics in politics, entertainment, sports and more. Joined by the sharp voices of the show's correspondents and contributors, and with extended interview and exclusive weekly headline roundups, this podcast gives you content you won't find anywhere else. Ready to laugh and stay informed. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created the big tape from Bloomberg Podcasts to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this meme stock stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Is, I think, embarrassing to the Sec.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amanda Mull, who writes our BusinessWeek Buying Power column. Very few companies who go viral are like, totally prepared for what that means. And Zoe Tillman, senior legal reporter. Courts are not supposed to decide elections. Courts are not really supposed to play a big role in choosing our elected leaders. It's for the voters to decide. Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Welcome. My name is Paola Pedrosa, a medium and the host of the Ghost Therapy podcast, where it's not just about connecting with deceased loved ones, it's about learning through them and their new perspective. Join me on the Ghost Therapy podcast. Whoa.

[Josh Clark]

My lights in my living room just flickered.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm a little nervous. I'm excited.

[Josh Clark]

I'm excited nervous.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know, I'm a very spiritual person, so I'm like, I'm ready and open. That was amazing. I feel so grateful right now. I got to speak to my great grandmother Abuela, and she gave me a lot of really good advice that I'm gonna have to really think about.

[Josh Clark]

Wow. Okay. That's crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, that is accurate.

[Josh Clark]

Listen to the Ghost Therapy podcast as part of the My Cultura Podcast network.

[Chuck Bryant]

Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

Or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tomer Cohen, LinkedIn's chief product officer. If you're just as curious as I am about the way things are built, the insights behind what it takes to create a world renowned product, then tune into my podcast Building one. There's so much to learn, like how Patagonia innovates with its supply chain. We had to go out to farmers.

[Chuck Bryant]

And convince them it was really damn hard.

[Josh Clark]

Or the way Adobe thinks about the first interaction somebody has with Photoshop. I was always so fascinated by how people navigate and find their way. Everyone wanted to know how Nike builds emotion into the Jordan brand. You have to be obsessed with the current state of the human condition. And it doesn't stop there. What about how glean reinvented knowledge? Search with AI you can learn about how a Michelin star chef is redesigning seeds for flavor and how Pixar is nurturing a creative culture.

[Chuck Bryant]

Listen to building one on the iHeartRadio app, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, and we're back. And as Chuck promised everyone, it's after effect time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, we talked a little bit about it. Obviously, Spirit Lake, which we mentioned at the beginning, which was at the base of the mountain, has a very strange effects on bodies of water. It did two things. It made the lake larger, but it also made it shallower because it just flooded all this water. Down there and raised it such that the outlet was basically dammed up. And so the lake got a whole lot bigger, but it reduced its depth by about 80ft. I think five years later, they built a spillway tunnel to control the depth of the lake. 200 homes and cabins and about 200 miles of road and railways were completely obliterated.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I also saw that lake was now 200ft higher in elevation than it had been before. As if, like, there was so much debris, it, like, raised the lake 200ft, even though it also made it shallower. It's nuts.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I think it lowered the ultimate height of Mount St. Helens, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I can't remember. I think by like 600 meters or something like that. Some ridiculous amount of height just blown off. And that was another thing too. Like the after effects of it. If you look at Mount St. Helens today, or especially like, right after afterward, it turned into like, an amphitheater. Like, the north side was blown out and the other sides were kind of curved around. And what was neat is one of the huge after effects of Mount St. Helens. One of the more positive ones is I saw it described as like a crash course for volcanologists and seismologists. And everybody who are now just had this amazing natural laboratory to study in. And that the eruption, because it was a lateral blast, opened up like a. Basically a cross section of the mountain that they could study. Now it's past history from the inside out, which I thought was pretty neat.

[Chuck Bryant]

And a young Trey Anastasio said, one day I shall play at the base of that amphitheater.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, did he?

[Chuck Bryant]

And bore people with noodling on my guitar, did he?

[Josh Clark]

They played there.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I don't think so. I don't think there's anything there. I was just kidding.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, wow. That was just completely made up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. I never will miss a chance to take a dig at fish.

[Josh Clark]

I'm with you.

[Chuck Bryant]

So ash is raining down and out. It literally darkened the skies. When this ash, if you were close enough to it, it would literally burn you alive. If you're far away, it can just create a lot of problems. Everything from just equipment not working, electrical outages and blackouts and brownouts. Visibility is obviously terrible. As far as crops go. Certain crops were wiped out by this ash and the toxic gases. Some of them did a little bit better because they just got a little bit of the ash. And it ash will help promote rainfall and hold moisture in the ground better. So apparently wheat crops and apple crops fared pretty well.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that was surprising.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I also saw there was a lot of devastation. Any, any big game animal in the blast zone was. Yeah, I said big game animal, by the way, was in the blast zone. Was, Was killed, without question. But they were, they were very surprised. Biologists who went investigate shortly afterward found there were, like, entire communities and ecosystems of smaller animals and plants, microbes, fungi that had survived just fine and were among the first to recolonize and were part of the reason why Mount St. Helens ecosystem started to rebound so quickly.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, that's what'll happen, right. If the Earth ever just burns up into a fiery ball, that'll just become a big mushroom field. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Probably. And then the animals that lived underground will come above ground and say, it's our time, baby.

[Chuck Bryant]

I look forward to that day for some reason.

[Josh Clark]

What else happened? Oh, I saw that the ash cloud that, that, that blew finally out of the top. We should say that the lateral blast was followed by a plinian blast. And that shot, like, you know, that was the money volcano shot that everybody was looking for a plume of ash and smoke ro thousand feet into the air. And it was moving so fast that it circled the globe in 15 days, came back to square one in 15 days. And of course, that was like, affecting air traffic. Do you remember that Icelandic volcano that affected air traffic in Europe for, like, weeks? Weren't you stranded by that or something?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't think so.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. Like, they knew what to do in part because of how Mount St. Helens affected air travel at the time. They were like, this is brand new to us. But it helped lay the groundwork for understanding what to look for, how to deal with that kind of stuff later on.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, the, the other thing I wanted to point out too, about Spirit Lake was if you look at footage of the lake and now these kind of rivers that were just happening, and it literally, like, rerouted, you know, the Columbia river and the Cowlitz river in sections. But it looks like a logging operation is happening and, like, you could almost and may have been able. Well, obviously it would have been too dangerous. But it looks like you could have walked over these logs. They were so, like, packed. And these were just trees, you know, an hour before.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. If you could do that lumberjack, log rolling thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You could have probably made it across the lake. You probably could have. But in that minute by minute episode, there was a pair of, like, high school sweethearts who'd been camping.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

A harrowing experience because they, they both got thrown into Spirit Lake and the boyfriend was able to rescue the Girlfriend as, like, the logs were starting to close in on him. He. He pulled her out from the lake, and they were hanging on to logs. When they finally made it out and were rescued, that happened. Like, that happened to somebody?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They were in their car.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, is that how. And that's how they got in the lake? They were in their car?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They said it just picked them up and all. They were driving and then they were floating and they said that there, you know, she said, like, my instinct was to get out of the car, but there was, like, nowhere to go.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Yeah. Because there were trees everywhere floating around beside them. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And this is. You know, these are just sort of. That's what was so cool about the special, is it really brought in the human element of these people that were around there.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they, you know, they all survived because they were being interviewed. Obviously. Dorothy Stoefel, who was the. The geologist that was flying with. I guess it was her husband Keith, or was that her brother?

[Josh Clark]

Her husband Keith.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay. They survived that plane flight. Like, they got out of there. There were stories of people that literally, it was like from a movie, drove, you know, 110 miles an hour, like, out running this ash debris slide coming at me.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Yeah. And some people didn't make it. There was one guy who was chronicled in that, that was driving as fast as he can in the. The. The blast just caught up with him and buried him in the. In the ash. And he probably died pretty much instantly. But, like, again, that happened to people. There's very famous footage of a house just flowing down like a newly engorged mudslide river.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Moving so fast that you probably could have towed water skiers from the house. Essentially. It was moving that fast just down the river. So, I mean, again, it was one of the most docum volcanic eruptions of all time. So there's really amazing footage on there, or just on the Internet, is what I mean. But that wasn't the last time that Mount St. Helens has erupted. I think it erupted a few times between 1980 and maybe 1996, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And then the biggest one recently was between 2004 and 2008.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it started sort of getting a little more active again this time, though. You know, one of the things that. To the benefit of the surrounding area, when a volcano blows like that is that pressure is released, and it's gonna take a long time to build back up to that level again, kind of depending what how it reforms on top of it. But this time, apparently there are There are more ways for this pressure to be released. So I think it's just sort of the pressure's being released a little more gradually since the 2004.

[Josh Clark]

That's my impression too.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they do say that like, oh, no, it will happen again. There is a new lava dome growing and the pressure is going to build up and it could be in a thousand years or it could be in 10 years.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we just don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, but they are studying it. There's a lot of active research and study going on at Mount St. Helens now.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I believe the eruption was such a big deal that the USGS opened a research station nearby. And also that 2004 activity basically ran from 2004 to 2008. Like you said, they've been studying the mountain closely. So there's amazing time lapse footage of those four years. And it's astounding how fast and how big Mount St. Helens just grows from that eruption activity called time lapse images of Mount St. Helens dome growth. It's on YouTube and I recommend checking that out as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I would just be careful when you Google dome growth.

[Josh Clark]

Or bulge growth.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, boy.

[Josh Clark]

So, man, we are so juvenile sometimes, aren't we? Sure. And by we, I mean me.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, me too.

[Josh Clark]

But like we said, Mount St. Helens bounce back. Spirit Lake opened back up and the Coldwater 2 station has been renamed after David Johnston. And there's an amazing memorial too, I saw on some TripAdvisor posted. Somebody said it was like the. One of the best, like not welcome center, but, you know, information centers that the person's ever been to. So, yeah, I would like to go there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Cookies are unreal.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

I got nothing else.

[Josh Clark]

All right, go forth and research Mount St. Helens with the nest. And you can start doing that by watching Dante's Peak. Since I said Dante's Peak, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is following up on an email that you particularly liked from our spooktacular.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, guys. Thoroughly enjoying the most recent spooktacular. The accents are comedy genius. Meagle, do you want to pop in and say hi?

[Josh Clark]

Hello.

[Chuck Bryant]

Perfect. I'm gonna bring Meagle back every now and then, by the way. Just want to prepare you and the audience.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

I wanted to address a couple of 1800s diction issues that caused some puzzlement when you guys talked about toilet. It's basically what Josh said. I've always thought of it as a refreshing, as freshening up in the bathroom, washing your face and hands when first waking up or going to bed. I double check with Merriam Webster though, and it's more generally dressing and grooming.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, that makes sense.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure. On the other hand, the strangers in the beverage from the Toll House is a lot more puzzling.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

I had no idea what it meant. And although Josh's guess that beverage meant the pub was clever, it doesn't really make sense. Just as a reminder, the sentence is talking about some men drinking tea in an inn and pausing to, quote, discover the sex and dates of arrival of the strangers which floated in some numbers in the bed. End quote. I think I found the answer though, guys, in a dictionary of Scottish dialect. We love this stuff by the way.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, this is amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Tea leaves floating on the surface of your drink are considered omens that you will meet someone new. So these tea leaves are called strangers. If you pick up a stranger and bite it, the toughness will tell you whether the new acquaintance will be male or female.

[Josh Clark]

Amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Amazing. I'm gonna guess there's also a way to predict the date you meet this person, although didn't see reference to that. So that's what the characters are doing, guys. Using tea leaves to predict the future. By the way, other omens can also be strangers, like unburned candlewicks or soot on Greats. I've loved the show for years. Look forward to many more. That is a great email Nat Jacobs. Fantastic sleuthing and we are super grateful.

[Josh Clark]

Top to bottom, start to finish. Wonderful email. Also just put so nice nicely too. Not like you big dummies. Yeah, because I got it pretty wrong. It was a terrible guess. But I mean that was really hard. Like you, that was obscure, you know, very much. Anyway, I love knowing that. Now that was one of my favorite emails. So thanks a lot Nat. And if you want to be like Nat and get in touch with us in the best way possible, you can send us an email to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Jon Stewart is back in the host chair at the Daily show, which means he's also back in our ears on the Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. Join late night legend Jon Stewart and the best news team for today's biggest headlines, exclusive extended interviews and more. Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to the Daily Show Ears edition on the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

You don't need another podcast. You've got too many already. But if you're looking for one that actually changes something, a way to take control of the chaos and find meaning.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, then, maybe the one you feed is for you. I'm Eric Zimmer, and I bring real.

[Josh Clark]

Conversations with real people to help you feed the best part of yourself.

[Chuck Bryant]

No hype, no fluff, just wisdom that works.

[Josh Clark]

Listen to the one you feed on.

[Chuck Bryant]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The forces shaping markets and the economy are often hiding behind a blur of numbers. So that's why we created the Big Take from Bloomberg podcast, to give you the context you need to make sense of it all. Every day in just 15 minutes, we dive into one global business story that matters. You'll hear from Bloomberg journalists like Matt Levine. A lot of this Meme stock stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Is, I think, embarrassing to the SEC.

[Chuck Bryant]

Follow the Big Take podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen.