Publications

Yellowstone National Park, a nearly 9,000 km2 (~3,468 mi2) area, was preserved in 1872 as the world’s first national park for its unique, extraordinary, and magnificent natural features. Rimmed by a crescent of older mountainous terrain, Yellowstone National Park has at its core the Quaternary Yellowstone Plateau, an undulating landscape shaped by forces of late Cenozoic explosive and...

Global Positioning System (CGPS) data from Mount Etna between May 2015 and September 2016 show intense inflation and a concurrent Slow Slip Event (SSE) from 11 December 2015 to 17 May 2016. In May 2016, an eruptive phase started from the summit craters, temporarily stopping the ongoing inflation. The CGPS data presented here give us the opportunity to determine (1) the source of the...

The May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens produced a 2.5-cubic-kilometer debris avalanche that dammed South Fork Castle Creek, causing Castle Lake to form behind a 20-meter-tall blockage. Risk of a catastrophic breach of the newly impounded lake led to outlet channel stabilization work, aggressive monitoring programs, mapping efforts, and blockage stability studies. Despite...

Recent improvements in analytical and microsampling techniques for multiple geochronometers have resulted in datasets with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution. These advances are accompanied by the discovery of crystal- and outcrop-scale complexities previously obscured by low analytical precision. Single-crystal incremental heating resolves subtle, intracrystal isotopic...

The Methow, Chelan, Wenatchee, and other terrane blocks accreted in late Mesozoic to Eocene times. Methow valley is excavated in an exotic terrane of folded Mesozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks faulted between crystalline blocks. Repeated floods of Columbia River Basalt about 16 Ma drowned a backarc basin to the southeast. Cirques, aretes, and U-shaped hanging troughs brand the Methow...

High concentration pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) are hot avalanches of volcanic rock and gas and are among the most destructive volcanic hazards due to their speed and mobility. Mitigating the risk associated with these flows depends upon accurate forecasting of possible impacted areas, often using empirical or physical models. TITAN2D, VolcFlow, LAHARZ, and ΔH/L or energy cone...

This publication releases digital versions of the geologic maps in U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Investigations Map 1950 (USGS I-1950), “Geologic maps of pyroclastic-flow and related deposits of the 1980 eruptions of Mount St. Helens, Washington” (Kuntz, Rowley, and MacLeod, 1990) (https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/i1950). The 1980 Mount St. Helens eruptions on May 18, May 25...

When it comes to forecasting eruptions, volcano observatories rely mostly on real-time signals from earthquakes, ground deformation, and gas discharge, combined with probabilistic assessments based on past behavior [Sparks and Cashman, 2017]. There is comparatively less reliance on geophysical and petrological understanding of subsurface magma reservoirs.

What do you do when a sleeping volcano roars back to life? For more than three decades, countries around the world have called upon the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP) to contribute expertise and equipment in times of crisis. Co-funded by the USGS and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance...

Mauna Loa is showing persistent signs of volcanic unrest. Since 2014, increased seismicity and deformation indicate that Mauna Loa, the volcano that dominates more than half of the island of Hawaiʻi, may be building toward its first eruption since 1984. Thousands of residents and key infrastructure are potentially at risk from lava flows, so a critical question is whether the volcano...

Crustal pathways connecting deep sources of melt and the active volcanoes they supply are poorly understood. Beneath Mounts St. Helens, Adams, and Rainier these pathways connect subduction-induced ascending melts to shallow magma reservoirs. Petrogenetic modeling predicts that when these melts are emplaced as a succession of sills into the lower crust they generate deep crustal hot zones...

In March 2008, a new volcanic vent opened within Halemaʻumaʻu, a crater at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on the Island of Hawaiʻi. This new vent is one of two ongoing eruptions on the volcano. The other is on Kīlauea’s East Rift Zone, where vents have been erupting nearly nonstop since 1983. The duration of these simultaneous summit and rift zone...