Mount Rainier (Figure 2.1) is one of about two dozen recently active volcanoes in the Cascade Range, a volcanic arc formed by subduction of the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the North American plate.

Around 800 million years ago, Earth looked very different from the world we know today. Continents were shifting, oceans were closing and opening, and the foundations of our modern planet were being ...

Island arc systems arise where an oceanic plate descends beneath another plate, generating a volcanic chain parallel to a deep-sea trench. Fluids released from the subducting slab induce melting in ...