Geologic Map and Geothermal Assessment of the Mount Adams Volcanic Field, Cascade Range of Southern Washington

Abstract

More than 60 Quaternary vents make up the basalt to rhyodacite Mount Adams volcanic field and have erupted scoriae and lavas with a total volume of >370km3. The Mount Adams andesite dacite stratocone itself is a compound edifice that include the high cone above 2300 m (20-10ka) remnants of at least two earlier andesite dacite cones as old as 0.5 Ma, and 7 Holocene flank vents. Four other Holocene vents and tens of vents contemporaneous with Mount Adams are peripheral to the stratocone. All of these vents, including Mount Adams, lie within a N-S eruptive zone 55 km long and 5 km wide. The age of al known Mount Adams silicic products (>100 ka) and the heterogeneous mafic compositions of the summit cone and Holocene lavas make it unlikely that the stratocone is underlain by an upper crustal reservoir. Rather, the stratocone at the focus is built up of fractionated hybrid magmas that rise from MASH zones (melting assimilation storage homogenization). The pyroclastic core of breccia and scoria at Mount Adams has undergone acid sulfate leaching and deposition of alunite, kaolinite, silica, gypsum, sulfur, and Feoxides and has been a constant source of avalanches and debris flows. Most heat supplied from depth to the fumarolically altered core is dispersed by the high precipitation rate and high permeability of the rubbly lava flows so that a hydrothermal convection pattern is not maintained. Summit restricted fumaroles are weak and diffuse.