A while back I posted on the Hidden Journeys project and a journey along the cascades. Today I thought I would put a brief post up with a little about the region and on one of the volcanoes which isnt talked about as much - Mount Hood. The volcanoes of the cascades arise because of the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate beneath its North American counterpart. From Mount Baker in the north to Crater Lake in the south the hazards these volcanoes pose are assessed by the Cascades Volcano Observatory (CVO) across the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. The remaining volcanoes to the south are assessed by the California Volcano Observatory (CalVO) In general, the research focus has centred on St. Helens due to the large amount of available and collected data as well as its relative ease of access. However there are many other important volcanoes in the area which shouldn't be forgotten! Image Courtesy of NASA: Mount Hood Mount Hood, pictured to the right, hasnt erupted since 1865 (although there are a couple of uncertain eruptions after this with the latest in 1907). Even though it hasnt erupted for over 100 years it still shows signs of activity from time to time - with events such as earthquake swarms beneath or near to the volcano and the instability of its slopes. A recent seismic swarm in 2002 allerted scientists to the possibility of volcanic unrest, however a study by Jones and Malone suggested that this earthquake was related to tectonic forces. Although they also stated that earthquakes situated directly below the summit could arise from volcanic unrest. For a good, brief overview of the Cascades and some of the volcanology/volcanoes of the region, I have attached the video from the Hidden Journeys project to my website which is worth a quick listen.
Hidden Journeys is a website dedicated to exploring the world through the air using amazing and awe-inspiring images of fascinating and beautiful areas by the Royal Geographical Society (London). Recently the story of the passage along the Cascades was illustrated on a journey between the two cities of Denver and Seattle and the Royal Geographical Society kindly got in touch to show me the work and share information about the project which I thought would be good to share as well. (C) Aaron Schmidt. Rainier and Adams through the clouds. By clicking along the scrolling images along the top and selecting the Cascade Mountains section you get through to a page with three sections of images on the Cascades, the famous 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens and a section on Mt. Rainier (featured in an earlier blog post of mine), the towering volcano which rests above the city of Seattle like a sleeping giant. Each section gives a good overview of the region, the volcanoes and the most important features around them. A graphic in the first section demonstrates how important research and study is of Mt. St Helens, not just for its 1980 eruption, as eruptions at this volcano are typically more frequent than at other cascade volcanoes. I have included a selection of the images on this blog post (click on images to see larger versions), but to see the rest you will need to visit the site, I certainly recommend a visit! In my next post I will be talking more about the volcanics of the region and more about one of the relatively forgotten volcanoes of the region Mount Hood in addition to the importance of the volcanoes further south in the cascades which generally recieve less focus online and in the media but are equally as important and fascinating. |
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