Mt. Baker at Sunrise

December 01, 2022

 

220830-3

Photographer: Marli Miller 
Summary Author: Marli Miller 

Reaching an elevation of 10,781 feet (3,286 m), Mt. Baker dominates the landscape of northern Washington. This view, towards the WSW from near Lake Ann, shows two of the more than 15 named glaciers that descend in a radial pattern around the volcano: the Park Glacier on the right; and Boulder Glacier on the left.

Mt. Baker, a stratovolcano, erupted andesite and dacite lavas from as far back as 140,000 years ago, but its most active period occurred between 25,000-12,000 years ago. It was during this time that it built its base and summit cone. Since then, it’s only erupted ash, although a collapse of one of its flanks occurred some 6700 years ago. Multiple small events took place during the 1800s and an increase in gas emissions in 1975 suggested the presence of new magma in the volcano. These emissions have tapered off through time.

The USGS maintains an active monitoring program at Mt. Baker. Because of the extensive glaciers, even small eruptions can trigger devastating lahars (volcanic mudflows), which can flow great distances away from the volcano. Photo taken on August 22, 2022.


Mt. Baker, Washington Coordinates: 48.832, -121.643

Related Links:

Mt. Baker in Filtered Sunlight

Marli’s Website

Quaternary Magmatism in the Cascades