MOUNT RAINIER
GEOLOGY & WEATHER
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Good Afternoon!
Wednesday, November 06, 2024
Today is day 311 of 2024 and
day 37 of Water Year 2025
Welcome to morageology.com! This site is an externally-accessible clearing house of static, real-time, non-real-time, and archived Mount Rainier geologic and geomorphic data used for geohazard awareness and mitigation. All data provided on this site are publicly-accessible non-sensitive scientific information collected by geologists at Mount Rainier National Park. Individual datasets are provided here for informational use only and are not guaranteed to be accurate or final versions - all data should be considered provisional unless otherwise noted.
TODAY'S DEBRIS FLOW HAZARD
10-DAY FORECAST TREND:
MMLLLLLLLL
LATEST PARADISE WEATHER
As of: 11/06/2024 02:00 PM

44° F
Wind: NNE (12°) @ 1 G 3 mph
Snow Depth: 27 in (212% of normal)
24-hour Precip: 0.16 in

[ Observation | Forecast ]
LATEST LONGMIRE WEATHER
As of: 10/31/2024 04:00 PM

40.6° F
Snow Depth: 0 in (0% of normal)
24-hour Precip: 0.02 in

[ Observation | Forecast ]
WINDY.COM PRECIPITATION RADAR
MOUNT RAINIER VICINITY
FORECASTED SNOW PACK
AT PARADISE (5,400')
[ More Info ]
Bank erosion on Tahoma Creek during the August 2015 debris flow (From a photo by Scott Beason on 08/13/2015)
LATEST EARTHQUAKES:
Earthquakes in the last 30 days near Mount Rainier
:
40

LAST 5 EARTHQUAKES:

  1. Wed, Nov 06, 2024, 00:55:54 GMT
    22 hours 33 minutes 27 seconds ago
    14.886 km (9.250 mi) WNW of summit
    Magnitude: 0.3
    Depth 13.4 km (8.3 mi)
    View More Info

  2. Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 09:50:14 GMT
    2 days 13 hours 39 minutes 7 seconds ago
    13.064 km (8.118 mi) SW of summit
    Magnitude: 0.2
    Depth 10.3 km (6.4 mi)
    View More Info

  3. Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 09:20:44 GMT
    2 days 14 hours 8 minutes 37 seconds ago
    15.243 km (9.471 mi) W of summit
    Magnitude: 0.7
    Depth 9.3 km (5.8 mi)
    View More Info

  4. Mon, Nov 04, 2024, 09:20:36 GMT
    2 days 14 hours 8 minutes 45 seconds ago
    14.220 km (8.836 mi) W of summit
    Magnitude: 0.4
    Depth 8.9 km (5.5 mi)
    View More Info

  5. Sat, Nov 02, 2024, 15:25:04 GMT
    4 days 8 hours 4 minutes 18 seconds ago
    0.151 km (0.094 mi) SSW of summit
    Magnitude: 0.7
    Depth 1.3 km (0.8 mi)
    View More Info

MISC:
Currently, this site has approximately
23,339,314
total data points in its database!
 
1 RANDOM PUBLICATION AND THE 5 LATEST PUBLICATIONS ADDED TO THE DATABASE:
  1. Leonard and Whipple (2021) Influence of spatial rainfall gradients on river longitudinal profiles and the topographic expression of spatially and temporarily variable climates in mountain landscapes
    Mountain landscapes have dynamic climates that, together with tectonic processes, influence their topographic evolution. Spatial and temporal variations in rainfall are ubiquitous in these settings as orographic precipitation patterns evolve with climate change and topography. Despite important implications such changes have for river incision, their influence is understudied. Here, we investigate how changes in rainfall pattern should affect both the steady state form and transient evolution of river profiles at the catchment scale using the stream power model. We find that spatially varied rainfall patterns can complicate steady state relationships between mean rainfall, channel steepness and fluvial relief, depending on where rainfall is concentrated in catchments, and lead to unexpected transient behavior if they are neglected. Specifically, changes in rainfall pattern cause multi-stage transient responses that differ from responses to uniform changes in rainfall. Disparate responses by rivers that experience different rainfall conditions, particularly trunk and tributary rivers, are also an important factor in understanding catchment-wide responses to climate change. Accounting for such disparities in sampling strategies and topographic analyses may, therefore, be vital for detecting and quantifying climate's role in landscape evolution. Lastly, we show how explicitly accounting for rainfall patterns in channel steepness indices, and thus spatial variations in erosional efficiency, may advance understanding of landscape sensitivity to climate. These results have important implications for detecting transient responses to changes in rainfall pattern (and more broadly climate), interpretation of morphometrics in steady state and transient landscapes, and quantifying the sensitivity of landscapes and erosion rates to climate.
  2. Thelen et al. (2024) Monitoring lahars
    Lahars, or debris flows that originate from a volcano (Pierson and Scott, 1985; Pierson, 1995), are among the most destructive, far-reaching, and persistent hazards on stratovolcanoes. Lahars may be triggered by syneruptive rapid melting of snow and ice, lake breakouts, or heavy rains in conjunction with large eruptive columns. Alternatively, lahars can follow eruptions, when clastic deposits are mobilized by heavy rainfall or lake breakouts, occurring sporadically for years to decades after large eruptions. Some lahars can travel many tens of kilometers in river drainages stemming from volcanoes, as during the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens (Washington) (for example, Janda and others, 1981), recent eruptions of Redoubt Volcano (Alaska) (fig. H1; Dorava and Meyer, 1994; Waythomas and others, 2013), and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo (Philippines) (Major and others, 1996; Pierson and others, 1996). Large lahars are less likely in the absence of eruptive activity, but still possible. The Electron Mudflow at Mount Rainier (approximately A.D. 1500), Wash., is an example of a potential noneruptive lahar, likely initiated by a spontaneous collapse of weak rock, that reached the Puget Lowland after it flowed dozens of kilometers without a recognized eruptive trigger (Sisson and Vallance, 2009). The extreme hazard posed by lahars was demonstrated tragically by the 1985 Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia) catastrophe that claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people (Naranjo and others, 1986). The potential to provide warnings of minutes to hours in advance of lahar arrival in a populated area (for example, Voight, 1990) is a strong reason to provide special monitoring attention to the hazard. Populated river valleys are located downstream from many very high threat and high threat volcanoes, and these areas could be affected by lahars (for example, Hoblitt and others, 1998). The volume and mobility of lahars are two characteristics that can influence the extent of downstream effects (for example, George and others, 2022). The flows that reach the farthest downstream are mobile and voluminous. Additionally, entrainment of material as a lahar travels downstream may increase the volume, and a lahar that starts small may grow to a destructive size under certain conditions. Increasingly, stratovolcanoes host recreational enthusiasts who could be affected by relatively localized geologic hazards, such as rainfall-induced debris flows, glacial outburst floods, rockfalls, and avalanches. These types of events can be common on many volcanoes, occurring seasonally in the case of debris flows and several times per year in the case of avalanches and rockfalls (for example, Allstadt and others, 2018). Many very high threat stratovolcanoes, especially within the contiguous United States, have low eruption frequencies (less than once per century), such that monitoring networks could be used more often for detection and characterization of small surface flows than for identification of volcanic unrest. Such information can be used to validate avalanche forecasts, inform rescue efforts, or notify other agencies of potentially damaged infrastructure (for example, roads, powerlines, or trails). Note that although many of these smaller surface flows create seismic and infrasound waves, the signals are typically highly distorted by the complex volcanic topography and geology. In general, the smaller the flow, the weaker the geophysical signals that it generates, and thus a denser geophysical network is required to study smaller flows (for example, Allstadt and others, 2018). Lahar detection may not be an appropriate or necessary monitoring capability for all volcanoes. Some very high threat volcanoes, like Kīlauea and Mauna Loa, have no lahar hazards currently, and thus no detection, tracking, and characterization capabilities for lahars are needed. At other very high threat volcanoes, such as Pavlof Volcano, Alaska, lahars might be common but pose minimal threat because the volcano is so remote. Ideally, the local observatory would understand the combination of hazard and risk associated with surface flows and assign monitoring and detection capabilities appropriately. Several volcano monitoring techniques (for example, Real-Time Seismic Amplitude Measurement [RSAM], amplitude-based locations, and infrasound array processing) can be adapted to also detect, characterize, and track debris flows, lahars, and other surface flows, so instrumentation installed for detecting volcanic unrest and eruptions can have multiple purposes. The utility of instrumentation for the purpose of monitoring unrest and lahars further justifies the importance and utility of a dense network of monitoring stations, even if the volcano remains quiescent.
  3. Iezzi et al. (2024) Debris-flow monitoring on volcanoes via a novel usage of a laser rangefinder
    Mount Rainier has had at least 11 large lahars over the last 6,000 years, including one occurring without evidence of eruptive activity. This prompted the creation of a lahar detection system that uses a combination of seismic, infrasound, and tripwires. We test a laser rangefinder placed on a river channel bank for detecting and confirming mass movements flowing past a station as an alternative to the physical tripwires. After testing the device at an experimental debris-flow flume, the laser rangefinder successfully captured a small debris flow on Mount Rainier in 2023, confirming its effectiveness as a lahar detection and monitoring tool. Over the 2-month deployment at Mount Rainier, we find that spurious recordings in the laser rangefinder data (noise) tend to correlate with high humidity, and that periods of noise do not correlate with increased co-located seismic amplitude. Therefore, the impact of the noise on future alarms can be mitigated by coupling a laser rangefinder alarm with that of independent datasets.
  4. Seitzinger et al. (2024) Adaptive management in the National Park Service: How Mount Rainier has grown and responded to imminent geomorphic threats
    The Imminent Threats Program at Mount Rainier National Park (MORA) is a novel addition to the typical structure of the National Park Service’s (NPS) Natural and Cultural Resources (NCR) divisions, operating as a branch of the distinguished Geology program. The landscape of MORA is characterized by steep, mountainous terrain; the very nature of the braided, glacier-fed rivers that cascade through this terrain is to change shape and structure constantly as sediment transport conditions vary. Such dynamic geomorphic surface processes pose complicated conditions for maintaining access throughout the park, affecting the integrity and longevity of park infrastructure, such as roadways, bridges, and trails. Recurrent damage to infrastructure proves that traditional maintenance and engineering techniques utilized for repairs do not work in the local environment. The need of a focused geomorphic risk group to address such inertia became identified in the early 2000’s and exists now formally as the Imminent Threats Program. The Imminent Threats technicians conduct scientific monitoring within the park to collect relevant observations of surface processes. This local knowledge is supported by additional literature review and is then used by the technicians to advise and implement holistic engineering designs fit to exist within rather than dominate the environment. The technicians also aim to influence the cultural perception of change and response to infrastructure damage within the agency workplace through their presence at interdisciplinary policy meetings, and also broader society through educational outreach. The long-running success of the projects they’re involved in encourages the Imminent Threats Program to continue to grow and influence the use of adaptive management techniques while responding to reparative needs in the park, ultimately creating improved, effective, and holistic change in resource management at MORA.
  5. Todd and Jimenez (2024) Time-lapse monitoring of a small mountain glacier to capture debris flow activity
    South Tahoma Glacier is a 2 km2 glacier in Mount Rainier National Park, WA that has produced 31 known debris flows since 1967, more than any other glacier on Mount Rainier. These geologic hazards threaten infrastructure and human lives along Tahoma Creek, downstream from the glacier terminus. The timing of these events and previous research suggests that debris flows from South Tahoma Glacier are most likely triggered by glacial outburst floods, which result when subglacial water storage increases due to (a) increased melt from a period of high temperatures, or (b) late summer or fall precipitation events. We installed a time lapse camera after a series of destructive debris flows in August 2015, and have monitored the glacier terminus from July - September, 2016 - 2023; we will reinstall a time lapse camera in summer 2024. We combine time lapse imagery with meteorological data, high resolution satellite imagery, and digital elevation models to investigate the relationship between recent debris flows and changes to the glacier terminus and proglacial meltwater channels. Our findings will document precursors to and impacts of debris flows from South Tahoma Glacier.
  6. Ruzzante and Gleeson (2024) Increasingly hot and dry summers exacerbate low flows and threaten pacific salmon habitat throughout Northwestern North America
    Excessively low stream flows in the late summer can disrupt aquatic life cycles, including those of ecologically and culturally significant species such as Pacific Salmon. Climate change is expected to drive hydrologic changes throughout northwestern North America, but the magnitude and direction of changes to low flows remain highly uncertain. Here we study 375 near-natural catchments, across rainfall-dominated, hybrid, snowmelt-dominated, and glacial regimes throughout the habitat range of Pacific Salmon from California to Alaska. Annual minimum summer discharge has decreased in most catchments; rainfall-dominated and hybrid catchments, which predominate in coastal watersheds and in the southern half of the range, have seen the most severe declines. We predict low flows using linear regression models which significantly outperform existing process-based models. We hindcast low flows back to 1900 and project changes to 2100 under four emissions scenarios. Low flows have historically been driven primarily by summer precipitation and moderately influenced by winter snow accumulation and summer temperature. However, we find that future changes will likely be driven by temperature because the magnitude of projected heating is large compared to the historical variability of temperature. Some further declines in low flows are probably inevitable in rainfall-dominated and hybrid catchments: under a low-emissions scenario, low flows will continue to decline to mid-century but then stabilize. Under a high-emissions scenario, 1-in-50-year low flows could occur almost every summer in rainfall and hybrid catchments. Bold climate action and mitigation strategies are urgently required to safeguard these habitats.

View More Publications...

LATEST UPDATES AND SITE NEWS:
August 5, 2019 Tahoma Creek Debris Flow
Posted on Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 17:00 by Scott Beason. Updated on Wed, Aug 14, 2019, 17:00

The 32nd recorded debris flow in Tahoma Creek occurred on August 5, 2019, between 6:44 PM PDT (8/6/2019 01:55 UTC) - 8:10 PM PDT (8/6/2019 03:10 UTC), as observed on the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network's (PNSN) Emerald Ridge (RER) seismograph. The event began as a sudden and significant change in the primary outlet stream from the terminus of the South Tahoma Glacier. This change caused a surge of water to go over loose, steep and unconsolidated sediment-rich areas just downstream of the terminus. Debris flow deposits were observed approximately 4 miles downstream at the Tahoma Creek Trail trailhead (an area affectionally known in the park as 'barrel curve'). The event is still being investigated... a good photo set (with a few videos) is available here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mountrainiernps/sets/72157710161403356/. If you would like to view more information about the event, click here: http://www.morageology.com/geoEvent.php#145. If you were in the area of the South Tahoma Glacier or Tahoma Creek on the evening of August 5 and/or morning of August 6, and have any interesting observations, please send them to Scott Beason.

New Camp Schurman weather station added!
Posted on Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 14:17 by Scott Beason. Updated on Tue, Jul 23, 2019, 14:17

A new weather station has been added to morageology.com. Click the following link to see hourly data from Camp Schurman on the NE side of Mount Rainier's volcanic edifice at 9,500 feet: http://waterdata.morageology.com/station.php?g=MORAWXCS.

Longmire RSAM Down
Posted on Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 05:00 by Scott Beason. Updated on Wed, Jul 10, 2019, 05:00

The Longmire (LON) seismograph has been reporting ground vibrations from a construction project in the area near the seismograph. In order to prevent erroneous debris flow alerts, the RSAM (debris flow detection) analysis has been disabled. The system will be restored once the construction project has been completed.

LATEST CASCADES VOLCANO OBSERVATORY WEEKLY UPDATE:

CASCADES VOLCANO OBSERVATORY WEEKLY UPDATE
U.S. Geological Survey
Friday, January 5, 2024, 1:47 PM PST (Friday, January 5, 2024, 21:47 UTC)


CASCADE RANGE (VNUM #)
Current Volcano Alert Level: NORMAL
Current Aviation Color Code: GREEN

Activity Update: All volcanoes in the Cascade Range of Oregon and Washington are at normal background activity levels. These include Mount Baker, Glacier Peak, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and Mount Adams in Washington State and Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Three Sisters, Newberry, and Crater Lake in Oregon.

Past Week Observations: During the past week, small earthquakes were detected at Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens. All monitoring data are consistent with background activity levels in the Cascades Range.



The U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory and the University of Washington Pacific Northwest Seismic Network continue to monitor Washington and Oregon volcanoes closely and will issue additional notifications as warranted.

Website Resources

For images, graphics, and general information on Cascade Range volcanoes: https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/cvo
For seismic information on Oregon and Washington volcanoes: http://www.pnsn.org/volcanoes
For information on USGS volcano alert levels and notifications: https://www.usgs.gov/programs/VHP/volcano-notifications-deliver-situational-information



CONTACT INFORMATION:

Jon Major, Scientist-in-Charge, Cascades Volcano Observatory, jjmajor@usgs.gov

General inquiries: vhpweb@usgs.gov