Catalog record
These fields are copied from the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program Holocene volcano snapshot stored on this site. The file was fetched 2026-09-19T12:21:44Z. It is a location catalog, not a live alert.
- Catalog name
- Rainier
- GVP number
- 321030
- Country
- United States
- Type
- Stratovolcano
- Elevation
- 4,392 m
- Region
- North America Volcanic Regions
- Subregion
- High Cascades Volcanic Arc
- Tectonic setting
- Subduction zone / Continental crust (> 25 km)
- Last-eruption year
- 1450
- Evidence code
- Eruption Dated
- Latitude, longitude
- 46.853, -121.76
Elevation rank in the High Cascades Volcanic Arc in this snapshot: 1 of 19. Rank is by the listed elevation only. It is not a hazard ranking.
How to read the last-eruption year
The year is a catalog field. A recent year means the snapshot recorded activity in that year. It is not an alert level, a size, or a statement about what happens next. Evidence codes in this file include “Eruption Observed” and “Eruption Dated.” Those are Smithsonian categories for how the eruption year was established, not a forecast flag.
Setting
Rainier’s catalog evidence code is “Eruption Dated,” and the last-eruption year is 1450. Mount St. Helens, in the same High Cascades subregion, uses “Eruption Observed” and a last-eruption year of 2008. Those codes describe how the catalog established the year. They are not a claim that one volcano is “due.”
Both sit on the Cascadia margin described by USGS: Juan de Fuca plate beneath North America. This page does not draw lahar zones or evacuation routes. Those products, when published, come from the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory, not from this catalog.
Inside these documented rectangles: Cascadia / W. North America coast. The rectangles are documented on the About page. They are a lat/lon belt, not an official plate polygon.
Other volcanoes in this subregion
Highest listed elevations in the High Cascades Volcanic Arc in this snapshot, excluding this volcano when it is already first:
- Shasta, 4,317 m, last-eruption year 1250.
- Adams, 3,742 m, last-eruption year 950.
- Hood, 3,426 m, last-eruption year 1866.
Distance to published great-earthquake epicenters
The distances below use this volcano’s catalog coordinates and epicenters from the USGS list of the 20 largest earthquakes since 1900. They are spherical distances to points, not distances to a fault trace, and not a hazard score.
- 1964 M9.2 Great Alaska earthquake (1964-03-28 03:36 UTC) — 2,265 km from the catalog point.
- 1946 M8.6 Unimak Island, Alaska (1946-04-01 12:29 UTC) — 2,972 km from the catalog point.
- 1957 M8.6 Andreanof Islands, Aleutians (1957-03-09 14:23 UTC) — 3,860 km from the catalog point.
You can repeat the measurement for any coordinates on the distance to fault references tool.
What this page will not tell you
It will not tell you the next eruption time, the next earthquake on the neighboring trench, or an evacuation route. For U.S. volcano notices, use the USGS Volcano Hazards Program. For earthquakes, use the USGS event pages linked from Live Quakes. This site’s volcano map only draws the Holocene catalog.