http://endoftheamericandream.com/could-mt-hood-be-the-first-volcano-to-erupt-on-the-west-coast/

March 3, 2021

It is just a matter of time before one of the big volcanoes on the west coast erupts again. For years, I have been warning about Mt. Rainier, and I will continue to sound the alarm about it. When it finally goes, the death and destruction it causes could be off the charts. Of course there are other volcanoes along the west coast that we need to be watching as well. Although it doesn’t receive as much attention as Mt. Rainier, some experts are becoming concerned that Mt. Hood could soon erupt. On Monday, dozens of earthquakes shook the volcano for 45 minutes, and the USGS is trying to calm the frayed nerves of nearby residents…

A 45-minute “earthquake swarm” reported this week near Oregon’s Mount Hood has the U.S. Geological Survey offering explanations — and reassurance the volcano is not becoming more active.

Dozens of earthquakes, most not felt on the surface, came in succession around 12:13 p.m. Monday, centered about a half mile southwest of the volcano, geologists say.

Hopefully the USGS is correct in this instance.

But if Mt. Hood was going to erupt, we would expect to see a rise in unusual seismic activity at the volcano, and that is precisely what we are witnessing.

It is true that there hasn’t been a major eruption of Mt. Hood in a very long time, but scientists tell us that one back during the 1780s was extremely destructive…

In the 1780s, the volcano rumbled to life with such force that it sent high-speed avalanches of hot rock, gas and ash down its slopes. Those flows quickly melted the snow and ice and mixed with the meltwater to create violent slurries as thick as concrete that traveled huge distances. They destroyed everything in their path.

Today, the volcano, a prominent backdrop against Portland, Ore., is eerily silent. But it won’t stay that way.

If a similar eruption happened today, resorts and little towns in the vicinity of Mt. Hood “would be obliterated”…

Kiss your ski season goodbye: Resorts and little towns like Zigzag would be obliterated by avalanches and pyroclastic flows (currents of hot gas and rock that can move at 50 mph and reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit). Deadly debris flows would reach Gresham and the Columbia River in about three hours.

Not "first" but "next".

Oh please take out Portland!

Correct. The OP must be too young to remember the one where the whole side of the mountain blew off - what was the name of it? Mt. St. Helen's, maybe?

If it blows, how long will it take before the damocraps file suit against Trump? Surely he should have done something during his 4 years to prevent it!

Wait, now you sound like the guy that said "come one San Andreas" on the thread about the NZ quakes.

Depending on the wind that day, it might get dicey in Potlandia.

Maybe even where you live?

Seems there's a whole slew of them over to your east.

We're f'd here if Shasta or Lassen decides to go.

I'll take earthquakes any day, but then again I've lived through dozens of them!

Yep. May 18, 1980.....I remember that Sunday morning well.

I can just see what would happen on I's 84, 205, and 5 if they need an evac near Portland. You'd better be towing an RV to sleep and pee in while you're waiting because you won't be going anywhere soon.
My sister lives near Puyallup, WA, way too close to Rainier. I also have 2 sons in the general area. They have volcano evacuation signs all over the place showing the recommended routes if people need to get out of town in a hurry. What a joke. They can't get people to work and back. An evac would be a disaster.

If people would only wear their masks this could be avoided.

They say that if Rainier ever goes, or when Rainier goes, the melted snow and mud will bury Seattle many feet deep.

I wonder if wiping out the left coast would actually be a disaster

The last time it blew was (we calculate) four years before Lewis and Clark pushed toward the Pacific.In fact it tore a path of fire lava and destruction that Clark had a hard time crossing the confluence with the "Sandy" River (once known as the Salmon River by the first people who called it home). The sand bar is still there and a hazard if you stray off channel in low water!

What a dipschidt web site that was, great source of chicken little discourse. Mt. St. Helens was a major event and was carefully studied and is used as a forecasting model worldwide. The massive release of materials and the resulting ash and clouds of gas and debris while dramatic and locally devastating had no long term effect outside of an area adjacent to the volcano. The release caused the theory of Nuclear Winter to be disproved.

Folks who choose to live in the shadow of an active volcano are special. Portland and Seattle will be sorely missed


mike r

andesitic strato volcanoes are mean mfkers, got that big solid ‘cum plug’ that lets pressure build and build, then it lets loose like a retard on prom night

200 years isn't a 'very long time'. In volcanic terms, it's just yesterday. 1000 years is getting more towards 'very long time'. The whole Cascade range is where the Juan De Fuca plate is crawling under the NA plate. Any of them could liven up again.

Memories, from 60 miles, I saw St Helens erupt, May 1980.
Our son skied Mt Hood on the 4th of July, in the early 90s.

Lots of eruptions are just drops in a bucket perhaps taking out a few cities and towns. Krakatoa (1883 I think) was a pretty serious deal with the initial shock waves making 7 or 8 passes around the globe. Seems recording barometers were the vogue thing among the wealthy in Europe at that time, and they recorded the pressure spikes as they repeatedly circled the earth.

Still, for those in the immediate area, even the small ones are significant. I got to venture into the Spirit Lake area a couple months after St Helens blew. The surgical nature of the pyroclastic flows was amazing. Old growth timber, blasted free of bark, all down, and oriented in the same direction was hard to understand when a stand 5 yards to the right appeared untouched, erect, and healthy. There were places where the forest and its underlying soils were heaved over the horizon. As we approached the mountain from the east, there were several view points where I would have confidently placed myself to watch the eruption. Had one indeed been there, no sign of him would have ever been found.

Indeed, Mother Nature can be a bitch, and it seems it's always the government's fault when she unwinds.

If I elect to occupy a flood plain, coastal sand dune, or a volcanic slope, it was my own undoing.

I've wondered it Harry Truman made it to his cave and survived the initial blast. If he did, he would have starved to death when it was covered up by the blast. I would rather go out in an inferno of glory than die slowly in a cave.

More than a few people probably wouldn't miss FL if it was blown into the Caribbean after a hurricane or two.

Hopefully it will hold off until after springer season.

I think the certainty of an imminent eruption of Mt St Helens was signaled by a 'growth' on the northwest slope for several days, measurements indicated it was growing about 5 feet every day.
Earthquake swarms are fairly common and not a reliable predictor. Underemployed journalists writing panic pieces shouldn't cause anybody to start nailing up 'for sale' signs.

A friend of mine was taking care of a dilatometer on the bulge of Mt Saint Helens. After the mountain blew his boss asked him if he thought they could find it and salvage it. One of out junior scientist has Johnston Ridge Observatory named after him. He was on it when the mountain blew and his last words were something like "there it goes". He was in an area deemed to be safe but it was not. They planted a tree at the Menlo Park USGS campus in his honor and later cut it down to make way for a new building. I spent a couple of days near Sprit Lake a few years after the eruption installing a bore hole acelometerr array. Often the mountain would be in clouds and we would have ash raining down on us. The only way out was directly toward the caldera and then across the front of it to get out of the danger zone. The accelometer we placed at a depth of 100 feet failed shortly after we installed it due to being cooked by the heat.

I have hopes for black rock desert

That will solve the diesel fuel problem

Johnston said: Vancouver, Vancouver this is it.


I don’t live there and I didn’t know his friend, but I remember it from 3rd grade when we did hallway artwork at school. From my ghetto school in Ft Bennin, Ga.




There ya go

Oh hurry with the "Green New Deal" This will help the odd balls sleep better.

Dave was best friends with my neighbor when I lived in fairbanks. Met him twice. Nice guy and avid rinner.

I would think Mt. Lassen might be a good canidate for eruption. Maybe even Mt. Adams.

Wonder if this is msm stirring up fears so when something happens, or doesn’t, it will validate the end of fracking.
Fracking will either have caused it, or because it’s been banned no eruptions happened.

Osky

I lived in Eugene and Springfield before and left for Pennsylvania before Mt. St Helen blew. I remember the warnings to old Harry Truman at Spirit Lake. He said he didn't care, he wasn't leaving. I bet that was a hell of a ride.

You and I better hope it's not Shasta, which is still considered active.

A tidbit from my college geology class. How true it is I just have to take for granted from the "expert", a professor and researcher.

In the area a bit North/Northwest of the mountain, there is some really "bumpy" topography. Up near Lake Shastina. Apparently, from the story our class was told, geologist has some theories about what caused it, but nothing really certain. Until St Helen's blew. While studying the aftermath they were able to find very similar spots there after the side blew out.

Being as how I'm only about 100 miles in a direct line from the peak, can see it from a couple of miles up the road. I'm hoping that big bish doesn't blow. Lassen for that matter either.

IIRC, there are three stages of volcanism: Active, Dormant, and Extinct. Active and Extinct are self-explanatory. Dormant means it hasn't erupted in a long time, but still might. The volcano on the island of Maui last erupted in the 17th century - and it is classified as Dormant. Let that be your scale of "what if".

It's hard to comprehend the size of Shasta unless you've climbed it, hiked on it or at least seen it in person. It's just absolutely titanic.

Geno
Aren't you on the other side of the mountain from Shastina?
Man you are going to have the best pics on the Fire ...

Geronimo and Sitting Bull trusted the U S Gov't. also!!

Wow, if they all went at once, would that not change the demographics of the Northern Leftist Coast?

Mt Baker north then Mt Hood to the south can be seen from the pavement at Mt Rainier Natl. Park on a very clear day.

If it blows, DB Cooper’s remains will never be found.

Growing up was always told the 3 sisters in Oregon were the ones to watch out for. Far as mt hood it all depends which way she blows. If it’s side explosion like St. Helens Portland is all but gone. If it blows towards Hood River I guess it potentially plug up the Columbia river. Bunch of what if’s

ROFLMAO

79S the Sisters Bulge was always news. I'm not certain but I think it has stopped expanding

I didn't mention Shasta because I'd not like to jinx myself! Every time I drive to town Shasta shows its glorious face! With all the aliens, living inside i figure they have control, or the ships would be leaving daily!😳

In 2019 we visited the Mt. St Helens interpretive center, which is about 4 miles from the caldera. The ranger held up a one-meter square thing made from tubing, and asked us to imagine 60,000 tons per second blasting through each square meter from four miles away.

We washed ash from huckleberries, gathered in Northern Idaho! The roads sides were covered with ash past Plains Mt! Odd to see the amount of cement like dust everywhere! Chip cars came into work with 8" of ash, I don't know what track they were on when St. Helens went, but it was an eye opener!

less chance of that though. laughing

Oh yea, about 100 miles due East.

But with prevailing winds, I'll get to see the 'splosion a few hours before we all choke to death and get buried like them Italian folks.

Maybe it catches me on a sourdough rye day and that gets mummified too!

The view from the very top is spectacular too.

Yep, and prevailing weather patterns would bury the midwest in ash, and probably seriously affect life in Europe and Asia in a very short time.

yeah, I keep my eye on the night sky watching for the ALIEN evacuation.

If I see more than normal traffic over that way, I'm tellin' momma to grab up the dogs, we're leaving pronto!

There's a river that come off Hood that dumps into the Columbia. Sandy river. Was originally mapped as Quicksand river by Lewis and Clark because of the ash from a pyroclastic flow. That eruption was in 1781.

There are drawing of steam plumes off it by settlers in the 1840s.

It will erupt again. Who knows when.

From what heard on the local news the recent seismic activity didn't have the signature of magma moving up, but water or steam.

And barring a big ash event with the wind blowing the opposite of the prevailing direction Portland wouldn't get effected much. Sorry to burst any bubbles.

Gresham, Troutdale, Hood River, The Dalles, all the communities on the side of the mountain on the other hand...

You guys should be rooting for a seismic event on the Juan de Fuca plate. Even though it would be out to sea and Portland wouldn't get hit by a tsunami, most of the Willamette Valley is clay and silt from the Missoula floods. Liquefaction is the Portland haters friend.

My maternal grandma was 12 yrs old when Lassen blew in 1914. She was one of a family of 11 that lived in the logging/milling company town of Westwood. I remember her saying, Papa was very concerned, and when he left for work, he told Mama and the boys, if it started looking bad, go hop the lumber train going to Susanville, he would find them. You could not see, she said, the ground from the sky, it was like thick ice fog. The company of course said, work, and what the company said went. It all turned out OK, but she remembers it was weeks before they saw a blue sky. 11 people in a tiny company house, laundry drying by the parlor stove, it was a little too cozy, but everybody gave Papa enough room.It bothered everybody a lot that nobody actually knew what was going on. It was the end of the rails and roads were impassable, even if you had an auto, men were cautious about crossing a mud flow horseback. I guess they were tough because they had to be.

If you’re ever in the Mt St Helens area, go to the visitors center and spend a day reading. It was mind blowing to me the amount of destruction.

Best pratical joke ever was played on Mt. Edgecumbe, near Sitka. Guys rented a helo and took some tires to the top of the mountain and lit them on fire to produce some lovely black smoke.

https://sitkahistory.com/2016/03/the-eruption-of-mount-edgecumbe-april-fools-day-1974/

Someone should take a play out of that book . . . for schitts and giggles

Made it to the top in 1967 after graduating from HS.

Another one in the area :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_Lake_Volcano

Geno, I worked on a road job north of Shasta out in the 'humps and bumps' . One of the engineers told me that rock that makes that wild landscape is Andesite, and he thought the flow from the north crater was so large and sudden, it engulfed water, tree, and vegetation, which exploded as huge steam boils shoving up those peaks. That ground is just riddled with lava tubes, a few of which contain ice caves only a couple hundred yards from a hot cave emitting clouds of steam on a cold morning.
You are just south of a hot fault, watch the horses buddy, watch the horses, they can feel it coming.

I seem to remember that they thought the “growth” wasn’t really happening and that the devices doing the measuring were wrong. At least until they weren’t.

Nice family story there.

Been to Westwood a time or two.

This whole area could start up at any time. Folks have warm water ponds and wells less than a mile from my house. And it ain't solar heat warming that water up.

Did the hike to the top of St Helens. The view looking down into the gash is impressive to say the least, and the blast area still looks very raw

So how powerful are they? This lava rock is in so. central Idaho, about 20 miles north of Ketchum. It's approx 6' in diameter so it's got some weight to it. It's sitting on a low granite ridge. The nearest old volcano is more than 50 miles away in a straight line. That's a long toss. Most of Idaho's volcanoes were the kind that poured out rivers of lava resulting in thousands of square miles of lava beds. This one obviously came from an explosion but most were very unlike the Cascade ones.

Then there’s Yellowstone to throw into the batch.

I remember flying over the Mt St Helens area in the B52 several times just before eruption and putting the targeting FLIR camera on the mountain. The entire frickin’ mountain was aglow on the FLIR.

Oven spring!

First? LOL

I didn't realize there were that many so close to me lol.
I remember Mt St Helen's going off, we had quite abit of ash falling, even here.

Sheesh! That is incredible!

. I remember it like it was yesterday. Have Cousins in Yakima, they had several inches of ash on the ground, it was like driving on ice. It turned dark in the middle of the afternoon. I won a lottery for the first 50 People to fish Spirit Lake after the eruption 5 years later.

Perhaps a glacier?

Giant thunder egg.

I remember it also, was in Lewiston Idaho taking my soon to be wife to the movie theater for an afternoon show. After the movie we went out to the parking lot, it was dark and looked like it was snowing. City road maintenance used snow plows to clear the roads. Had to change air filters in the vehicles every time doing an oil change and several times in between, for a long time.

Didn't you say that you were a fossil/ gem collector Steve?
I can only imagine that it would fragment on impact
. That said, it would be easy enough for the locals to verify without need of a geologist.

Around here it’s Glacier Peak they say is more concern than Rainier but Rainier has a ton of people in its path.

Experience?

Lassen, Shasta, Hood.......

It will all fail in comparison to a properly placed Juan De Fuca or San Andreas event.

A Juan De Fuca event in particular wipes out everything west of I-5 in Washington, and possibly everything in the area up to 200' above sea level.

Was 5 when st helens blew, quite the deal alright.... The toutle still isn't right, rainier blows, to the west, it'll be something else....

LMAO

Geology with Professor Slumlord.

You're smoking Krakatoa!

How far was that location you mention from the mountain?

The Mt St Helens area is still quite a sight, especially for flatlanders.

Similar lava bolulders we found in New Mexico. Out in the middle of no where. I mean NO WHERE. No idea how far it was to anything resembling an old volcano, but it was at least 50 to 75 miles. That's one heck of a shotput throw.

I'll bet the double ace flys over and rescues at least half a million people......

I'm no geologist and don't know much about this stuff. I ran across this thing while hunting and it's very out of place sitting where it is. It's porous lava and there's no other lava for many miles. It's possible that it's final placement was by a glacier but it's only about 5 miles from here to the top of a 10k ridge. It still would have to have been tossed 40 to 50 miles and over that ridge. There was a lot of old volcanic activity in Idaho but most was in the flat desert. This is in the high mountains.

No, I'm not. I was being half sarcastic. We used to look for thunder eggs over around my grandparent's place in Madras. They had some of those big round lava balls like that one around. We would call them giant thunder eggs. Thunder eggs are found in the ash layers.

if Yellowstone blows, it will be the end.

We had ash from Mt St Helens on our vehicles -
In Los Alamos, NM.
Southwest of Los Alamos is the Valles Caldera. I've been told that when it blew, it was taller than Mt Everest.
How they figured THAT out, I'll never know - but the crater is miles across and higher altitude than Los Alamos, which is just over 7000 ft.
Grants has some of the most impressive lava flows, tubes, and even ice caves around.
NM is highly volcanic. I believe most of the west is.

There needs to be liberals sacrificed.

I was stationed at Ft. Lewis when St. Helens blew. Had some of our dudes in the south Ranier training area at the time. A pretty wild few weeks back then!

Utube has a lecture series dealing with the Pacific Northwest.
The last I saw dealt with "Ghost Volcanoes" those that once existed but died and eroded away.
The Cascade range is forty million years old, but the average Volcano exists for a average of two million years.
Many of the old ones are gone but they left traces, even totally erased they can be located by past lava flows.
In fact, when you see Granite you're seeing rock that was formed deep below a Volcano.

You can see that this one is sitting on top of the soil so it had to have been formed much later than the mountains around it. It's on a steep ridge so it could have landed higher up and later rolled to where it is now. It would have made a pretty good divot if it had landed where it is although erosion could have leveled out the ground around it. It still had to have got over that 10k ridge, though.

Mt.Mazama ( Crater Lake ) in our county, was estimated over 23,000 feet in elevation. Now the lake level is around 6100 ft, with surrounding peaks around 8k to 9k. Not only did the Mountain loose over ten thousand feet in elevation, it left a hole forming the deepest lake in the U.S.! To put that in perspective, Mount Mitchell in the east, would be but a bump at the base! Mt. Rainer, and Mt.Shasta in all their splender, would also be bumps! Amazing to think about if you've ever seen either of those mountains!

RockChuck:



I suspect Harry's demise was quite swift and sure.

As to displaced rocks, another potential mode is glacial transport or events like the Missoula floods. One sees some of Montana's rocks well up Oregon Deschutes River Canyon, and near Eugene in our Willamette Valley. Likely encased in ice and deposited 5 to 600 ft above the present flood plains. Done a little traveling around FlatHead Lake, and there are signs in several locals denoting high water makes a couple thousand feet above the valley floor. Those had to be epic events when those ice dams broke and downstream destruction was again probably quite swift and sure.

Heym06:

Did a ton of reading years back when investigating some soils deposition patterns. Going from memory that might be failing, but seem to recall an estimate of about 14 cubic miles of material being ejected in the Crator Lake blast.

Pyroclastic material. That one is a giant tephra ball.

Dick- if your local? Univ geology dept. doesn’t know about that one, they may appreciate that info.

Any of these volcano smoking with pressure building?

Northern AZ too. Hundreds of cinder comes from Williams to NW of Flagstaff. The ones in Williams are the oldest and the ones near Flagstaff the youngest. Last eruption was about 1000 years ago. Had a friend whose dad was a geophysicist at NAU who mapped out heat flow at Yellowstone as part of his thesis. He told me that if the water table wasn’t so low on the Kaibab Plateau there could very well be geisers in Northern AZ given the amount of heat.

Not currently.

And that was only 7,700 year ago. I would guess that it put out a few emissions when it blew. When you drive from Roseburg to Diamond Lake the road has road cuts through ash deposits that are many feet deep.

There are active fumaroles on top of My Hood. Smoke and steam can sometimes be seen from the valley below.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2000/fs060-00/

when stationed at Madigan on Ft Lewis in 1977 and 78, me and some of my buddies went down and climbed Mt St. Helen's several times on the weekend...

it really was a fairly easily climb...

was living in Minnesota when it blew... it was hard thinking 1300 ft or so of the top of it was gone... it also had some pretty thick forest around it...
beautiful place before it blew.. afterwards, not so much...

Hell, we go people worrying about volcanos blowing, DemocRATS running everything on the Entire West Coast and in DC..

Warnings the Chinese are going to take us over... the borders flooded with illegal aliens with Covid infections...

Looks like we are ALL just going to die... its the end of the world...

except at Nancy Pelosi's house in San Fran...

Yeah, but noting out of the ordinary.