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.