Swarm of small earthquakes shakes slopes of Mount Hood

A swarm of more than two dozen small earthquakes have shaken under Mount Hood over the last two days, officials said Tuesday, though it is unlikely they were caused by volcanic activity.

Starting Monday afternoon, more than 30 small temblors have occurred about a mile northeast of Government Camp, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The largest was a magnitude 2.1, which officials said was likely too small to be felt.

During the last 20 years, Oregon’s tallest peak has seen a number of small quake swarms, most recently in 2014. In 2001, a cluster of seismic activity culminated in a magnitude 2.9 earthquake. The following year, a magnitude 4.5 struck about 3 miles south of the summit.

“Based on similarity to past seismic sequences near Mount Hood and on past studies of seismicity in the Mount Hood area, we infer that these earthquakes are occurring on tectonic faults and are not directly related to volcanic processes occurring beneath Mount Hood,” officials said in a statement.

Read more: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/07/swarm-of-small-earthquakes-shakes-slopes-of-mount-hood.html