Week 5-Mt. Rainier-Terri Lenhart

Because the geology on this continent is so diverse and I love the pacific northwest, I chose to visit Mt. Rainier In Washington. This is a beautiful area and I have been there many years ago in person. It was cold and majestic. Mt. Rainier has the most glacial activity of all North America, and is an active volcano. the mountains formed in the pacific northwest was a great pick because regarding plate tectonics, this area has everything! There are two mountain ranges along the coast. The subducting of the Juan de Fuca oceanic plate has created the Cascade mountain range (the innermost of the two) which is a volcanic range. This area is rich in geographic diversity. The Pacific plate and the Juan de Fuca oceanic plates are offshore, and create offshore earthquakes, there is volcanic activity, and there is oceanic and continental plate activity. You can see from the attached diagram which I found that there is a great deal of geologic activity present there. With 2 oceanic plates, the north American plate, and an oceanic trench, this is a busy geologic site. In the ocean, the plates are divergent, and the oceanic plate is convergent with the north American plate resulting in the subduction of the oceanic plate.