Yet since the end of the last ice age, Glacier Peak has produced some of the largest and most explosive eruptions in the state. During this time period, Glacier Peak has erupted multiple times during at least six separate episodes, most recently about 300 years ago.

Originally posted by gemineye
reply to post by westcoast

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I don't know much about reading these, but I'm assuming this isn't normal! A couple of those look scary, even to my untrained eye.

Keep us updated! Have you actually felt any quakes? I hope nothing big happens!

Yet since the end of the last ice age, Glacier Peak has produced some of the largest and most explosive eruptions in the state. During this time period, Glacier Peak has erupted multiple times during at least six separate episodes, most recently about 300 years ago.

Glacier Peak lies only 70 miles northeast of Seattle÷closer to that city than any volcano except Mount Rainier. But unlike Mount Rainier, it rises only a few thousand feet above neighboring peaks, and from coastal communities it appears merely as a high point along a snowy saw-toothed skyline. Yet Glacier Peak has been one of the most active and explosive of Washington’s volcanoes.

Since the continental ice sheets receded from the region, Glacier Peak has erupted repeatedly during at least six episodes. Two of these eruptions were among the largest in Washington during the past 15,000 years.

Glacier Peak and Mount St. Helens are the only volcanoes in Washington State that have generated large, explosive eruptions in the past 15,000 years. Their violent behavior results from the type of molten rock (magma) they produce. Dacite, the typical magma type of Mount St. Helens and Glacier Peak, is too viscous to flow easily out of the eruptive vent; it must be pressed out under high pressure. As it approaches the surface, expanding gas bubbles within the magma burst and break it into countless fragments. These fragments are collectively known as tephra; the smallest are called ash.