Mount Adams
Mount Adams is one of the largest volcanoes in the Cascade Range, it is
way
bigger then any of the surrounding mountains. Mount Adams has been less
active
during the past few thousand years than its neighboring mountains of
St. Helens,
Rainier, and Mt. Hood, it will erupt again. In the future the
eruptions will
probably happen more often from vents on the summit and upper
sides of Mount
Adams than from vents scattered in the volcanic fields
beyond. Large landslides
and lahars that don’t need to be related to
eruptions probably will cause the
most destructive, far-reaching hazard of
Mount Adams. Volcanoes create a variety
of geologic hazards during eruptions
and when there isn’t any eruptive
activity. During most of its history Mount
Adams has shown a limited range of
eruptive styles only being lava flows,
debris slides, and tephra falls. Very
explosive eruptions have been rare.
Compared to the large explosive eruptions at
nearby Mount St. Helens during
the past 20,000 years, the eruptions of Mount
Adams have been very mild.
Eruptions at Mount St. Helens have covered areas more
than 120 miles downwind
with ash deposits several centimeters or inches thick,
but those at Mount
Adams have blanketed only areas a few miles away with a the
same thickness of
ash. Even though they’re low levels of power and force,
eruptions at Mount
Adams are still very hazardous. More importantly even during
times of no
eruptive activity, landslides of weakened rock that originate on the
steep
upper sides of Mount Adams have been a dangerous common thing and they
can
start lahars, which are watery flows of volcanic rocks and mud that
surge
downstream like rapid flowing concrete. Lahars also known as mudflows
or debris
flows and they can destroy and kill everything in the valley floors
that they
run down in to tens of miles from the volcano. The most often
occurring type of
eruption that has happened at Mount Adams, as well as in
the other volcanic
areas, produces lava flows, or streams of molten rock.
These and older lava
flows usualy traveled less than 12 miles from the vents,
but in some events
larger flows where as long as 15 to 30 miles. Typical lava
flows on the lower
sections of the mountain and other places in the volcanic
fields spread out onto
gentle slopes and funneled out into valleys. The
moving flows were tens of feet
to more than 100 feet thick and where made up
of crusty lava blocks covering a
more fluidish, liquid core. Their steep
fronts moved very slowly at about only
about 330 feet per hour. That’s much
more slowly than people typically walk.
Still, the lava flows will bury,
crush, and burn all structures in their paths,
and hot lava boulders coming
off flows make it very dangers to on lookers and
the also will start forest
fires. A normal eruption consists of one main single
lava flow over a period
of days or weeks and even of a sequence of flows erupted
over weeks to a few
years. Eruptions that keep happening over years to decades
build a broad
apron of lava flows on a side of a mountain or even build a
separate small
volcano several 1,000 feet 6 miles or more in diameter. There is
a very large
possibility of Mt. Adams erupting again very soon because it has
been a long
time since the last time it awoke. The people and businesses in the
area need
to be aware and cautious of the risk they are in by living and working
near
the mountain like as it is with any other volcano. This mountain
also
provides a great place for hiking, biking, skiing, and many other things
that
would be ruined if this mountain was to awake. It is a very scenic
beautiful
mountain that has the potential to do what Helens has done.