Sir, Your report (Sept 7) on the “champagne effect” in molten lava, as announced at the BAAS conference and published in Nature magazine, states that had this been better understood in 1980 then scientists might have been able to give warning of the eruption of Mount St Helens.
My recollection is that there were many published warnings of the impending eruption as early as March 1980, well before the eruption of May 18 that year. What was not realised in advance was that it would explode sideways, and it was this that caused the exceptional devastation.
DENNIS FARRELL
West Cheshunt, Herts