Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state recorded hundreds of light earthquakes early Tuesday morning, though the Cascades Volcano Observatory said they weren't indicative of a pending eruption of the park's underlying volcano.
The swarm of quakes was detected just before 1:30 a.m. PDT, the observatory said.
"So far, hundreds of earthquakes have been detected with event rates up to several per minute, ranging from depths of 1.2 – 3.7 miles (2-6 km) below the summit. The largest earthquake located thus far is a magnitude 1.7," the observatory reported about 9:30 a.m. PDT Tuesday. "Currently, there is no indication that the level of earthquake activity is cause for concern, and the alert level and color code for Mount Rainier remain at GREEN / NORMAL."
The National Park Service did not report the quakes.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Mount Rainier is considered the third most-dangerous volcano in the country, in part because of surrounding populations that could be impacted by lahars — rapidly streaming mudflows — spawned by an eruption. The most-dangerous volcano, according to the USGS, is Kīlaeaua at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, followed by Mount St. Helens.
The observatory noted that the eruptions began at about 1:29 a.m. PDT with a swarm of small earthquakes near the summit of Mount Rainier. The quakes ranged in depth from 1.2 to 3.7 miles below Rainier's summit.
"There are hundreds of small earthquakes occurring at rates of up to several per minute at times. No earthquakes have been felt at the surface," the observatory reported. "Instruments do not show any detectable ground deformation at the volcano, and no anomalous signals have been seen on the infrasound monitoring stations. Mount Rainier does not have a dedicated continuous volcanic gas sampling capability."
Rainier "typically" generates about nine earthquakes per month, the observatory said. "Swarms typically occur 1-2 times per year, but are usually much smaller in terms of number of events," it added. "The last large swarm at Mount Rainier in 2009 had a maximum magnitude of M2.3 and lasted three days. The 2009 swarm had over 1,000 earthquakes. ... Past swarms have been attributed to circulation of fluids interacting with preexisting faults."
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