How Dangerous Are The Northwest's Volcanoes?
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- In 1980, all eyes were on Mount St. Helens. Could the Northwest see another eruption soon?
More here:
www.opb.org/ne...
#OPB #pacificnorthwest #volcanoes #mountsthelens
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Don't forget about Mt.Shasta, and Mt.Lassen in Northern California, which are part of the Cascade volcanic ark Mt. lassen erupted in the early twentieth century. Mt. Shasta has active steam vents at it's summit, last erupted in the eighteenth century, and has a major interstate highway, along with a handful of small towns sitting alongside it's base.
And a water reservoir downstream at Lake McCloud.
I'm disappointed nothing about CALIFORNIA
Have you ever really looked closely at the ground north of Shasta? Huge lava rocks not part of a flow but more of a blast distribution. If you travel from weed on 97 towards Klamath falls and you gain altitude where you can see the valley north towards Yreka you see “hummock’s” these are from a huge ash eruption where extreme amounts of mountain and ash blew out. It looks in my uneducated eye to be miles further than mount saint Hellen’s blast radius. There where mountain ridges there to slow and deflect the blast but I want to say that from what I can see Shasta has had some serious explosive eruptions as well. Geology rocks😊🤟🏼
Siskiyous
“...... a handful of small towns sitting alongside...... IT IS base”???
I lived 40 miles South SW of St Helens when it erupted. It was exciting to watch. In the 2004 eruption I was 5 miles East of it, on 25 NFD road the next day. I was wanting to climb it. It will be fairly safe for eruptions for awhile. It has a pressure release for the time being, until such a time that enough material blocks it again.
The cascades are littered with ancient volcanoes. The average life span is about 2 million years. Fub fact. The plate tectonics of the PNW revolve around a center point, located in Pendleton Oregon.
I can imagine one of the volcanoes wake up and Rainier is like "Shut up I'm trying to sleep"
Rainier is considered the most dangerous volcano because of its close proximity to water and snow at the top. (The last activity of any type on Rainier was in 1894 with a small eruption).
@@jamesbraun9842 Someone better not disrupt Rainier's beauty sleep then lol
Totally disregarded Mount Adams which is the second tallest peak in Washington and still an active volcano.
Ya was wondering when they were going to talk about Pahto
it is important to note that stress transfer zones connect all of the active volcanoes within the PNW as well as those around the Ring of Fire. Pressure from the plates can travel North or South if surrounding natural events occur e.g. The San Andrea's Fault has a connecting stress transfer zone North up to Mt. Rainier the largest active stratovolcano in the PNW
Yeah Rainier makes up like one-eighth of Pierce County (includes Tacoma) and when it erupts the national park will be vaporized by lava, the resulting lahars will destroy Kent, Puyallup and most of Tacoma, and Seattle’s port (which is mostly on the Duwamish river) will be fouled up with ash, mud, charred trees and toxic gases. As a born-and-raised Washingtonian I’ve had quite a few nightmares about it, but luckily it might not happen within my lifetime since the last eruption was while Lewis and Clark were first starting their expedition and our volcanoes normally each take about 300-400 years between eruptions
I would like to critique that this video has I couple problems with it. 1. Mt. Baker last erupted in 1843, not 6,000 years ago. 2. Mt. Hood actually has most of its eruptions confined to this summit and are lava dome collapses, only around 7,000 did Mt. Hood create a lava flow. therefore Mt. Hood does erupt mainly at its summit because crater rock is the technical summit of the mountain. due to an eruption 1500 years ago the lava dome collapsed and now the highest point on the mountain is the side of it. 3. Mt. Jefferson's last SUMMIT ERUPTION was 13,000 years ago not eruptions in general. the last eruption was in 950 A.D. there have been cinder cone eruptions and lava flows. I know that people are going to reply to my comment saying "they are professionals, they know what they are talking about" and my response to that is that you should do your own research because even professionals can get their stuff wrong.
correction, in the video they said that Mt. Baker last erupted in 1000 B.C. not 6000 years ago. but not much better really. They also forgot to add Mt. Adams to the list of Major volcanoes.
Oh, and a correction. Jefferson last erupted at 950 CE from a cinder cone south of South Cinder Peak cone. Secondary cinder cones also need to be considered when checking through a volcano's history.
And you forgot Mount Adams, the one strato right besides Saint-Helens.
Not to mention Shasta and Lassen. Terribe doco.
@@lhaviland8602 they must be talking major eruptions because Baker last erupted in 1880... Not some 1000 BC. 🤣
Today when Rainier was out when I was on a ferry from Vashon back to Seattle I saw what seemed to be a secondary crater from some previous eruption to the left of the peak well below the tree line. And also it once apparently erupted sideways like St. Helens, looking like it does today about 3000 years ago.
@@badpiggies988that might’ve been a flank collapse with a major lahar
@@swirvinbirds1971And the last recorded eruption of Rainier was 1894.
Shasta (and the little cinder cone beside it), are just over the oregon line in California, yet Shasta is one of the tallest of the Cascades. Even Lassen, further south, is the tag end of the Cascades, and it still has gas vents and fumaroles from its eruption in the early 1900s. Plus, the Cascades also extend into British Columbia. The Cascades don't exist solely within Oregon and Washington........
Californians hate when people talk about the happenings on the West Coast and don't include them. It always has to be about them, lol.
@@Excalion88I mean lassen is deffs worth mentioning concidering it only erupited 100 or so years ago.
I was going to make a snarky joke about how volcanoes erupting in California make things better. But then I remembered Rainier would erase big parts of Seattle, which is also an improvement.
Tell you what. Let's bring Northern CA and Southern OR together as the State of Jefferson, and then they can be part of the PNW club.
I had a dream a couple years ago, where a loud voice said Mt Hood will bow into the sea 🌊 . Guess only time will tell
The disregard for Mt. Adams is interesting. However, it can not be understated how dangerous the potential of any eruption from Rainier can be. Lahars are going to cause insurmountable damage to all the towns in the river valleys, and if Rainier has a similar eruption like the one that caused the Osceola Mudflow 5700 years ago, a lahar that reaches the Puget Sound again will cause great damage to Seattle and surrounding suburban areas.
You forgot to mention the two volcanoes on the Canadian side of the Cascade rages, Mount Garibaldi and Meager. Both are also considered as active.
I’m a volcano groupie! Used to live on Whidbey Island, we could see Mt Baker and Mt Rainier.
How about Mount Adams and Shasta ?
Lassen too it was the last eruption besides st helens.
There are a lot more that have been active in the last 10000 years in USA.
And a volcano can come to life very quickly, look at Chaitén from Chile, as a good example.
I'm guessing they weren't included because they haven't been active for a very long time? Just a guess though. I was wondering the same thing too
I'm pretty sure this video is only washington and oregon so no shasta or lassen. Both could blow their lids potentially at any time, kinda makes you perpetually nervous if you live nearby one of these beautiful monsters
"The next Mount Saint Helens size eruption could most likely be Mount Saint Helens" Not necessarily, a Mount Saint Helens style eruption could come from any of the volcanoes in the cascade mountains. Look at crater lake formerly a volcano the size Rainier, it erupted with a force 10,000 times larger then Saint Helens yes this is a rare event but none the less still it an event we know is possible and could come from any of the cascade mountains. Just because Mount Saint Helens is the most active and famous doesn't mean it's the one that poses the biggest threat and will most likely erupt massively again. Saint Helens actually erupted in the 1800's and that eruption was actually not very large, it has a history of lots of activity but huge eruptions from it are actually pretty rare. Personally I'd be worried about mountains like Rainier due to their similarity to Saint Helens and are closer to more populated areas.
I agree with you, however, Mt. St. Helens is the most active volcano in the cascades. Other than that, I agree
@@the-eu8xp I aswell am not a geologist, just a really smart 12 year old who makes volcano and earthquake related content on my UA-cam channel. I do however, know that the CVO (Cascades Volcano Observatory) needs to focus on lesser known volcanoes like Mt. Jefferson, Glacier peak, and Three sisters. Three sisters has some hope though, with the new renewal of volcanic earthquakes and magma rising. I am very stressed that monitoring at Jefferson is so very weak, because its last eruption was more violent and explosive that Newberry yet they both happened at the same time. But alas, Mt. Jefferson only has 1-2 seismometers.
@@the-eu8xp yes I agree, however I think that any potentially active volcano should have less than 1 seismometer, therefore, we cannot see the full picture of its seismicity and if Mt. Jefferson were to have a life threatening eruption, geologists wouldn’t know because of its extremely low tracking. Any future volcanic eruption from Mt. Jefferson could (and most likely would) release deadly lahars to nearby towns.
What makes Rainier scary is that ANY eruption is going to be catastrophic. Rainier has more glacier mass than all the rest of the Cascades combined. Just a little bit of oozing lava could send brutal lahars all the way to Puget Sound. In fact there's record of an enormous mudflow, which is NOT associated with any volcanic release. Maybe a glacier got too big, maybe a jiggle from an earthquake. Either way, zero warning, just a 100ft wall of mud and trees and boulders crashing towards Tacoma.
He sounds like "Hi, I'm Chris Hanson, and this is a volcano".
I l live 30 minutes away from mount Rainer and I live I the valley of it woul d flow through
Glacier Peak is the big one. It’s the only volcano in the lower 48 states that has the same explosive materials as Krakatoa and other volcanoes that have explosive eruptions.
@@bigrooster6893 No, Glacier Peak is not the 'big one'. Rainier is far more dangerous, as evidenced by its inclusion on the Decade Volcano list, a list of 16 volcanoes on Earth with violent histories in close proximity to large urban areas. Rainier has so much glacial ice (more than any other peak in the contiguous US), that when it goes, it'll flood the entire Puyallup River Valley with boiling mud.
I was at the eruption of Mt.St. Helens. The day was beautiful when the call came in at 8:30 a.m. I was stationed in Sedro Woolley under Mt.Baker. I was at Crater Lake.
Why wasn't Mt. Adams mentioned?
Mt. St. Helens woke up in March 1980 and blew up on May 18, 1980.
They're active again....
What about Mt Adams? In southern Washington state? And Mt Shasta and Mt Lassen in California?
There listing the 8 most dangerous volcanoes in Washington and Oregon
@@peanutchicken13 read the title, they are listing major pacific northwest volcanoes, and they missed five Mt. Meager and Mt. Garibaldi in Canada, Mt. Adams in Washington, and Mt. Shasta and Lassen peak in California.
Mount Baker has erupted since americans settled in washington (even reports of seeing lava and smoke from a steamship in the 1860s)
Good video, nice job OPB.
Great video thank you
If Mount Rainier blows we’re all screwed.
Definitely. It'll trigger other northwestern explosions, triggering other natural disasters like avalanches, flash floods, tsunamis, etc. So yeah, we're done.
I am dead because I live in Seattle
@@hasanabid7724 There is a fighting chance, actually. I will explain:
First off, know the mountain. Rainier is a stratovolcano. This means it's "temperament" is NOTHING like what you would see in Hawaii. Hawaiian volcanoes are all shield volcanoes. They aren't as gassy. The dangers from Rainier would include pyroclastic flows, lava bombs, lahars, lava itself (depends on how close you are to the foot of the volcano in that case, because the lava's viscosity is closest to sticky peanut butter rather than heated honey) shaking earth, and really poisonous air. Expect levees and plumbing to fall apart because infrastructure has not been updated in a donkey's age. Any suburb just beneath the volcano is TOAST.
Second, watch it if the quakes start hitting above a 4-5 on the Richter scale. If it does, LEAVE. These usually are a harbinger of danger in eruptions. A nice trip to Texas is in order. Texas is volcano free. Do not doubt the warning on tv if it does come. Just GO GO GO.
Third, buy insurance when your place is not shaking or baking, like right now. Your valuables can be replaced. Your family and elderly cannot. Take photographs, computer laptops, your clothes, dirty or not, and consider your wife's jewels DEAD LAST. There is such a thing as volcano, flood, and quake insurance. If you are really that troubled, buy it, and skimp on new things like cars and luxury.
Last, immediate escape: if the governor says to evacuate, try to stay away from the main byways and take the backroads south and towards California. Head AWAY from the volcano and hug the coast. Do not stop until you hit San Francisco. DRIVE there, no bus! More immediate danger would require you to make a beeline to a boat and head for Canada-bribe your way on one if you must!! Rainier is very similar to Vesuvius in that it has a major city under its foot and it should be capable of the same tricks that killed Pompeii. FLEE! FLEE!!
Mary Katherine Goode why would I go towards California since I live in Seattle, wouldn’t going to Canada be a better idea?
@@marykatherinegoode2773 come to California with active earth quake plates
You forgot the Blue Lake Crater, Belknap Crater, West Crater and Indian Heaven Volcanic Fields
Very informative video..educational and cool video...I enjoy the fact of science....to learn from these volcanoes....
Is it possible for the closed captioning to be edited with punctuation? For Deaf and Hard of Hearing viewers, it is incredible difficult to read captions that are one run one sentence for five minutes, or to identify who is speaking. Thank you.
I actually went swimming in Crater Lake in July 2022. The water is absolutely FREEZING because it’s snow melt.
If it’s time...it’s time. Just depends where your at.
Dutchsinse on YT is great for forecasting earthquakes, USGS should hire him - because they are no use to us here in the USA - maybe they could learn something!
they left out Mt Adams in Washington and at over 12,000 it is only second to Rainier in Washington for height
Rainer isn’t likely to blow? 650,000 years average? We’re 650,000 now.
And it's active again....
Volcanoes don't have routine timers. They erupt whenever they want to.
Rainier isn't even 650,000 years old
Good video, thank you.
This is a great video. Nice work.
Are there any in British Columbia?
Yes. Read my post.
Mt. Garibaldi
Excellent!
I'M NEXT TO RAINIER 🔥 OH GOD
At least it’s not Yellowstone I would study rainier instead of panic
Mt Rainer about to erupt! Been venting and now bulging on the north side. 12/15/19
@aranphor Fumerals or funerals you mean? 😂 update yourself to current events.
Can you post a link to that info?
@@shastina5493 you are uneducated and maybe you need to study geology and volcanology before you run your mouth you know nothing of child
those are fumerals and they have been doing that for years and no that mountain is not bulging child
@@davidconejr4206 Took you two minutes to try to correct your comment. Who needs to study? Not me! The earth going through major change and you just want to attack instead of wake up. Peace out!
I live in silverdales about a hour from seattle if one were to erupt I would see it at least my st helens and mt rainer
if one of those volcanoes goes off like crater lake did it'd make the krakatoa blast look like a backyard BBQ
I live next to Rainer yaaay
I’ll be fine in very not panicking right now and not planning an evacuation
had to do this for school
Mt. Adams?
NO crater lake is not a crater it's a caldera!!! It should be called Caldera Lake!😡🌋
Mazama Lake.
The earth ain't that old
It will be mount Adams because it’s not mentioned here.
Two epicenters of 10.6 earthquakes: under Mt. Rainier and under Grand Coulee Dam here in Washington is coming. Plus others in B.C. at the headwaters of the Columbia River taking out the three dams. Then, BOOM all the volcanoes will erupt.
Canada's volcano is sleep for 150 year
God kept St. Helen's from erupting until I arrived from Ecuador the day before. You just might want to pay attention.
What about Yellowstone?
Active again too... July 2019
Yellowstone is not a cascade volcano. It is on a hotspot. Cascade are on a subduction zone.
Also not likely to erupt anytime soon.
I doubt that vulcanologists that cover only the cascade range would talk about it
Gee Terry, what about Krakatau for that matter!
Earth pimples
Live near the base of Shasta
Far more worried about Cascadia earthquake. Volcanos are far more rare.
Didn't even mention Mt Adam's.
Answer: It depends.
Most active ≠ most dangerous.
HAWAII'S VOLCANOES ARE NOT NORTHWEST VOLCANOES.
okay.
Ain't nothing that old !
Ty broke his arm in 2004... normal Eric
Volcanos are always erupting.
Last time Baker erupted was 1880 man... Way off on your dates.
Wonder if they are talking about explosive eruptions. But either way small eruptions shouldn't be ignored.
I’m like Mt Baker then. 😂 🍑💨
Don't give 2020 ideas
Top surgery 2004
Portland's back yard🤣 if anything its Seattle's back yard, half is in yakima county so pretty much closer to the city of yakima, my city!
St Helens is closer to Portland than it is to Seattle, by about 2 and a half hours.
DUTCHSINSE channel for the latest uncensored activity !!
LOL you beat me to it.
A tip of the hat sir. 👍
How can the children of pioneers become weak immoral scumbags? Do a documentary on that please.