Important Takeaways:

• The largest active volcano in Washington state has been rocked by a series of earthquakes, putting experts on high alert.
• Mount Adams is a 12,000-foot-tall stratovolcano located in south-central Washington, about 55 miles southwest of the city of Yakima.
• This volcano is considered a ‘high threat’ due to its ability to trigger landslides, debris avalanches and mudflow that can travel up to 50 miles per hour down the slope, which would put thousands of people at risk.
• Although this volcano hasn’t erupted for about 1,000 years, ‘it will assuredly erupt again,’ US Geological Survey (USGS) experts say.
• But it’s impossible to say exactly when it will blow, which is why scientists have established monitoring stations around Mount Adams to track its seismic activity.
• But the biggest threat to people living near this volcano isn’t an explosive eruption.
• It’s actually avalanches, landslides and lahars, or muddy flows of rock, ash and ice that ‘surge downstream like rapidly flowing concrete’ and can occur during eruptive or non-eruptive periods, according to the USGS.
• ‘The ice-capped summit conceals large volumes of hydrothermally weakened rock, and future landslides of this weakened rock could generate far-traveled lahars,’ USGS officials wrote.
• In light of the recent earthquakes, scientists have installed three additional monitoring stations around the volcano to keep a closer eye on it.

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