Hazards

Mount Baker has the necessary ingredients to produce lahars and flank failures – an abundance of altered rocks coupled with lots of fragmental material (loose rock and soil) and plenty of water from rain and melting snowfall.

The last period of pyroclastic flow activity at Mount Baker occurred about 12,500 years ago, shortly after continental glaciers retreated from the area.

Overall, Mount Baker has not produced large amounts of tephra fall in the past and probably will not in the future.

The next eruption of Mount Baker may produce lava flows, pyroclastic flows, tephra falls, lahars, and flanks failures.

Mount Baker is largely constructed of lava flows, with the youngest summit lava flows (between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago) found in the Baker and Sulphur Creek drainages and perhaps in the Glacier Creek drainage.

Mount Baker is presently not showing signs of renewed magmatic activity, but it will surely become restless again. Future magmatic eruptions at Mount Baker are likely to be preceded by changes at the volcano that could be detected by modern volcano-monitoring techniques.

History of debris avalanches as Mount Baker.