93. Riedel and Dorsch (2016) Geomorphology of Mount Rainier: Landform mapping at Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
    The Geomorphology of Mount Rainier National Park (MORA) was completed as one of the 12 basic inventories desired for each park in the 1998 Natural Resources Challenge Inventory Program. It is closely linked to ongoing mapping of soils by the Natural Resource Conservation Service and to the multi-scaled USFS National Hierarchical Framework for Ecological Units (Cleland et al. 1997) to provide opportunities for ecosystem management with adjacent national forest lands. In the broadest sense, the geology of MORA is a testament to the awesome power of tectonic forces near a subduction zone that created the largest stratovolcano in the lower 48 states. At a small scale (Subsection) Mount Rainier volcano is surrounded by mountains dominated by older volcanic rocks, setting it apart from Glacier Peak and Mount Baker to the north. The geomorphology of the park is also strongly shaped by surficial Earth processes that are controlled largely by climate, such as glaciation, mass wasting, and river erosion and deposition that are controlled largely by climate. These processes created the shape of the landscape adjacent to the volcanic cone that dominates the skyline for hundreds of miles and accounts for about 8% of the park. Erosion by glaciers created the dominant landforms of the park, the cirque and valley wall. Slightly more than half of MORA is mapped as valley wall, while the heads of all major valleys are mapped as glacial cirques and account for 7% of the park. Glacial moraines are common landforms and are scattered at various elevations. The youngest of these moraines tower above the termini of modern glaciers and attest to the sensitivity of the glaciers to climate change. Only 100 years ago, glaciers filled the valleys above the moraines to cover about 30% more of the park than they do today. Mass-wasting processes are important on the steep slopes of the volcanic cone and valleys walls. The largest landslides in the recent history of the park created the Osceola and Sunset amphitheaters on the volcanic cone, and triggered massive lahars that reached all the way to Puget Sound as little as 600 years ago. We also mapped 116 large landslides (debris avalanches) along valley walls; many of these are very old features, while many others remain active today. Rock falls and topples are also common from cliffs and rock summits across MORA. Most of the material being eroded from valley walls ends up at the bottom of these steep slopes to form debris aprons. This landform is the second most prevalent in the park, covering about 12% of the total area, and has a significant amount of volcanic ash from more than 30 eruptions of Mount Rainier and other Cascade volcanoes. Five major watersheds radiate from the volcanic cone, and each has a somewhat unique geologic history. Because they head on the heavily glaciated active volcano, Cowlitz, Carbon, Nisqually, Puyallup and White rivers have broad glacial valleys with wide, terraced floodplains and braided rivers. They all have carried large lahars from the volcanic cone to surrounding lowlands. In contrast, the Ohanapecosh valley is the largest in the park that does not head on the volcano and, as a result, has a different geomorphology than the others. This is evidence by a higher proportion of valley walls (71% of basin) and a narrow floodplain that accounts for less than 1% of the watershed. Most of the valleys have broad, U-shapes created by glaciers, but steep, rock-walled river canyons also occur throughout the park and include popular visitor destinations such as Box Canyon on the Muddy Fork of the Cowlitz River. In some cases the canyons are found down-valley from the reach of glaciers, while in other settings they are carved into the flat floors of glacial valleys. Several unusual landforms were identified in this inventory. A sackung was identified along the west side of Iron Mountain in the Kautz Creek watershed. Sackungs are typically identified as depressions running near the crest of a ridge and are deep-seated slope failures driven by gravitational forces acting on valley-walls over-steepened by glacial erosion. Parklands are gently sloping former lava flows that are favored destinations for visitors because of their accessibility and beautiful open subalpine meadows. This inventory identified 55 individual parklands that cover about 29 km2 of MORA. Another noteworthy landform at MORA is patterned ground, which consists of stone lines or rock polygons created by frost action on fine-grained deposits at elevations high above treeline. We identified nine sites in the park with these features; all are found along high ridges where winter temperatures are extremely cold and high winds remove insulating snow cover. The data contained in this report has several important management implications for MORA. Landforms provide critical information on three of five soil forming factors (parent material, time, and relief) and are also closely linked to vegetation. Combining landform, soils and vegetation data will allow park staff to unlock many key ecological relationships, identify habitat for key species of plants and animals, and guide ecological reference site selection and restoration. This report also presents important information for management of geologic hazards, including volcanic (lahars) and non-volcanic (rock falls, debris cones, debris avalanches). Many of the mapped landforms provide information on past climate change in the park; these include features which range from less than 100 years old to glacial moraines as old as the last ice age (13,000 years ago). Data included in this report will also assist with cultural resource management because landform age is known to correspond to the density of archeological sites. Finally, this report contains many stories about the natural history of the park that interpreters can share with the public. These stories include, but are not limited to, the history of the volcano and the unique natural history of each major valley, the sensitivity of the park to climate change, prehistoric human use of MORA, and the inter-relationships between geology, climate, geomorphic processes, soils, vegetation, and habitat.
538. Wall et al. (2026) Origin and evolution of mafic volcanism associated with 3 m.y. of andesite production at the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster, southern Washington Cascade Range
     More than 3 m.y. of mafic volcanism near the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster in the southern Washington Cascade Range, USA, lends insight into the evolution of basalts and the subarc mantle at a long-lived, major arc volcanic locus. We contribute field observations, 40Ar/39Ar dates, paleomagnetic directions, and bulk rock and mineral compositions to characterize nine mafic units that erupted in association with the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster. The time frame of mafic volcanism, ca. 3.6 Ma to 60 ka, encompasses the lifespan of the central volcanic cluster (3.1 Ma to 115 ka), with a lull from ca. 2.7 Ma to 1.4 Ma. A climactic period of voluminous mafic activity and far-traveled lava flows, including construction of the Hogback Mountain shield volcano, coincided with voluminous andesite eruptions from the central volcanic cluster. The basaltic rocks in the Goat Rocks area are calc-alkaline to barely tholeiitic and have high field strength element depletion relative to large-ion lithophile elements characteristic of calc-alkaline basalts (CAB) of the Cascade volcanic arc. Unlike at neighboring andesitic volcanic centers (Mounts Adams, St. Helens, and Rainier), no other mafic end members such as high-aluminum olivine tholeiite (HAOT) or intraplate-type basalt (IPB) are present at or near the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster, although some of the calc-alkaline basalts in this study have IPB-like affinities. The Goat Rocks mafic units exhibit two main temporal trends in composition: (1) the most primitive basalts erupted earlier, compared to less primitive and more evolved compositions later, and (2) high field strength element concentrations are higher in the younger basalt units relative to the oldest two. In contrast to these temporal trends, the mafic units define two compositional groups that recur through time, a low-Sr and a high-Sr group, each with distinct trace element and Sr and Nd isotope ratios. Although radiogenic isotope ratios are generally aligned with High Cascades CAB and HAOT, some extend toward IPB of Mount Adams and Simcoe Mountains volcanic field. Olivine-dominated crystal fractionation at shallow pressure from a small range of parent magma compositions accounts for much of the variation among the basalts and basaltic andesites. A high-pressure fractionation model is plausible for only one of the youngest basalt units (basalt of Walupt Lake volcano). Mafic recharge and crustal assimilation accounts for the incompatible-element enriched composition of basaltic andesites erupted during construction of the largest andesitic centers, further supporting sustained basalt mass flux and thermal energy driving andesite genesis. We model the most primitive members of the Goat Rocks mafic units as partial melts of successively less depleted mantle in time. Variable degrees of fluxing with fluids and melts from subduction explain the distinction between high-Sr and low-Sr groups. We propose that mantle metasomatism by ancestral subduction and fluid-flux melting is heterogeneously distributed through the local subarc mantle and played a greater role in the genesis of the high-Sr basalt group. The limited range of primitive basalt types around the Goat Rocks volcanic cluster contrasts with the much greater diversity of basalts throughout the southern Washington to northern Oregon Cascade arc. On the other hand, the central volcanic cluster encompasses nearly the entire diversity observed at neighboring composite volcanoes. In the case of the Goat Rocks area at least, and perhaps attributable to the entire region, this means that the genesis of diverse intermediate magmas is independent from and does not require vastly different parental basalt compositions.
537. Black et al. (2026) Forest-floor burial in 1507 by the largest Mount Rainier lahar of the past millennium
     New dating of lahar-killed trees underscores volcano hazards in the Puget Sound metropolitan area. Beginning as a landslide from the west flank of Mount Rainier, Washington, USA, the Electron Mudflow, which was the largest lahar of the last millennium, swept more than 60 km down the Puyallup River drainage into areas now densely populated. Wiggle matching of seven radiocarbon ages from buried, bark-bearing Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) trees brackets the mudflow’s age between 1477 and 1522 CE with 99.7% certainty. To narrow this date, we applied dendrochronology crossdating on samples collected from 21 trees killed by the lahar, measuring 86 time series for statistical verification. The four bark-bearing trees died the same year while the final rings in all other trees had decayed, exposing rings formed in earlier years. When averaged together, the crossdated measurements form a 475 yr master chronology that was correlated against absolutely dated tree-ring chronologies in the region. The Electron chronology best matched with chronologies from low-elevation sites, especially a Douglas-fir chronology from Vancouver Island, Canada, to show that the Electron trees died in 1507 CE. Latewood in the final ring was beginning to form, indicating the mudflow likely occurred in the late-summer months. What caused the Electron Mudflow is unknown, but this precise date will help to assess possible relationships with other events, assist in interpreting Indigenous narratives about the mudflow, and increase awareness of potential lahar hazards.
536. Koepfli et al. (2025) Discovering spatial variability of critical zone processes at Mount Rainier using DAS
     Mount Rainier (4392 m a.s.l.), an active stratovolcano located ~95 km south-east of Seattle, WA, USA, poses hazards due to its steep glaciated slopes and highly porous volcanic surface. The combination of snowmelt, rainfall, and unstable surface materials frequently triggers debris flows and lahars, threatening downstream communities. At the same time, Mount Rainier’s glaciers play a crucial hydrological role, storing water that sustains rivers and therefore agriculture across the heavily populated lowlands during dry summer months. To better understand the shallow subsurface (critical zone) and its connection to the surface, we collected data using Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) along a ~40 km fiber-optic cable that spans over ~1000 m elevation and crosses diverse lithologies. We analyze ambient seismic noise by using auto- and cross-correlations to image and monitor near subsurface conditions and compare our results with data from nearby weather stations, river gauges, and soil pits. We identify various coherent fiber sections and link the frequency content of seismic noise sources to local hydrological settings. We also find an increased signal-to-noise ratio for specific lithologies. Observed seismic velocity changes (dv/v) align with nearby ground moisture measurements but vary along the fiber. To explain these spatial variations, we investigate hydrological processes that connect surface conditions and subsurface responses
535. Kenyon (2025) Behind the curtain: Characterizing the Nisqually Watershed of MORA as a means to explore the use of non-contact data sources in mountain hydrology
     Impacts from a changing climate are affecting the hydrology, geomorphology, and overall variability of rivers around the world. Upland water especially prone to these effects. Mountainous rivers are experiencing significant shifts in precipitation patterns and the storage of snow and ice in source areas, resulting in stark changes to hydrologic variability, sediment transport, and fluvial morphodynamics. Most hydrology methods have been developed for use in rivers with a slope of <0.001 m/m, and the advancement of knowledge relevant to steeper rivers with has followed slowly in comparison. This research aims to address gaps in mountain hydrology associated with the measurement of discharge and bedload sediment transport in mountain rivers with a slope ≥0.02 m/m, seeking means to improve our ability to observe hydrologic trends and morphodynamics. Containing widely distributed low-resilience infrastructure, significant increases to precipitation intensities, and glacial recession rates greater than 0.1 m/day, the Nisqually River within Mount Rainier National Park (MORA) exemplifies a nexus of modern land management issues driven by climate stressors of the Pacific Northwest. With this study we seek to further characterize observable surface processes in the Nisqually watershed within MORA, and begin considering new methods and frameworks enabling reliable monitoring of steep mountain rivers. We consider the use of seismic, infrasound, and video analysis data as non-contact methods to measure discharge and sediment transport in steep mountain rivers. The primary non-contact data series can then be supported by remote LiDAR products and Sentinel-1 data to assess changes in the source areas and their potential impacts on observable behaviors. Initial data shows signals in the seismic/infrasound that seem to correlate to both water flow and bedload transport. We hypothesize there will be observable correlations with topography and snowmelt timing seen though remote sensing analysis, but also anticipate site-to-site variability based on substrate and local morphology
534. Conner et al. (2025) Characterizing surges from a debris flow induced by a glacial outburst flood at Mount Rainier, USA
     On 15 August 2023, a small debris flow occurred in Tahoma Creek on the southwest side of Mt. Rainier National Park, Washington, USA. The debris flow originated from an outburst flood from the South Tahoma Glacier. Multiple instruments installed in the Tahoma Creek drainage recorded evidence of the debris flow, including nodal and broadband seismometers, infrasound sensors, a laser rangefinder located about 3.4 km downstream of the glacier, and a timelapse camera that captured images of the glacier terminus. In particular, nodal seismometers with a sampling rate of 500 Hz were deployed roughly every 350 m along approximately 2 km of the stream. After initiation of the debris flow, we find evidence in the seismic data of at least three debris flow surges due to either additional small outbursts from the glacier or the debris flow separating into multiple surge fronts caused by wave development from flow instability. Though the arrivals of the surge fronts are often obscured by higher-frequency signals contributed by the full debris flow, we find that the surges can be tracked as they travel downstream. From the seismic data, we are able to approximate where and when the surges merged or separated from the main flow and estimate the flow velocity of each surge front. As the fronts of debris flows generally contain the largest and most damaging materials in the flow, each surge front increases the hazard associated with an event. The dense instrumentation in the Tahoma Creek drainage allows for an in-depth analysis of the evolution of debris flow surges, providing information on how similar debris flows may behave in the future and contributing to the overall understanding of how debris flows evolve over time.

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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

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

General inquiries: vhpweb@usgs.gov