Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: What is the largest glacier on Mount Rainier?
Emmons Glacier is on the northeast flank of Mount Rainier, in Washington. At , it has the largest surface area of any glacier in the contiguous United States. The glacier was named after the geologist Samuel Franklin Emmons after his involvement in a survey of Mount Rainier in 1870.
North of this area, on the slope of Mt Haszard, is Inferno Crater, filled with a striking pale blue lake of highly acidic water with a pH as low as 2.2. The crater was blasted into the side of the mountain as part of the 1886 Mount Tarawera eruption event and remains the site of the largest geyser-like feature in the world. Although the actual geyser plays at the bottom of the lake and cannot be seen, a handful of active fumaroles are visible on the shore and the cliff face behind the lake. The water level of this up-to- lake follows a complicated rhythmic cycle that is interconnected with the nearby Frying Pan Lake.
Mauna Kea ( or , ) is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the highest point in the state of Hawaii. Most of the mountain is under water, and when measured from its oceanic base, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world measuring over . Mauna Kea is about a million years old, and has thus passed the most active shield stage of life hundreds of thousands of years ago. In its current post-shield state, its lava is more viscous, resulting in a steeper profile. Late volcanism has also given it a much rougher appearance than its neighboring volcanoes due to construction of cinder cones, decentralization of its rift zones, glaciation on its peak, and weathering by the prevailing trade winds. Mauna Kea last erupted 6,000 to 4,000 years ago and is now considered dormant. The peak is only about higher than its more massive neighbor, Mauna Loa.
On January 5, 2019, following alleged bullying and intimidation of the proposed Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park supporters, Minister Phillips issued a statement announcing that public consultations that were planned for Drayton Valley, Edmonton, Red Deer, and Sundre, would be cancelled and with announcements of alternative consultations. The Bighorn Wildland Provincial Park is a proposed provincial park that would be situated near Rocky Mountain House. The proposed area to be set is "about the size of Rhode Island" and is the largest of four proposals for "new or expanded" parks. The proposed region, situated between Banff National Park and Jasper National Park , would provide a vast and critical wildlife corridor for numerous wildlife species, including sensitive species, such as bull trout—Alberta’s provincial fish, wolverine, and grizzly bears, that would extend from Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in the south to the Yukon in Northern Canada. According to a January 7, 2019 article in "The Globe and Mail", some residents of Rocky Mountain House, a town of 7,000, led by United Conservative Party (UCP) Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta (MLA) for Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre, Jason Nixon, oppose the creation of the park. Nixon has made unfounded claims that the plan is a "foreign-funded plot to wall off the back country to Albertans who call the region home".
Although no rain gauge exists on the mountain, data at nearby Mount Bellenden Ker suggest an annual average rainfall of around , and an estimated potential maximum as high as , both of which would make the mountain one of the wettest places in the world. Even in what constitutes the "dry" in most of tropical Australia, rainfall on the summit is very heavy at around in May and in August, whilst in the wettest month of March estimated averages are as high as and maxima around . Calculations based on available lowland data (from Innisfail, Cairns and Port Douglas) would suggest "daily" rainfalls could have been potentially as high as during a cyclone in 1911 - which if accurate would be the highest daily rainfall in the world.
According to a Reuters report, the [[Himalayas|Himalayan]] glaciers that are the sources of Asia's biggest rivers—[[Ganges]], [[Indus]], [[Brahmaputra]], [[Yangtze]], [[Mekong]], [[Salween]] and [[Yellow River|Yellow]]—could diminish as temperatures rise. Approximately 2.4 billion people live in the [[drainage basin]] of the Himalayan rivers. India, China, [[Pakistan]], [[Bangladesh]], [[Nepal]] and [[Myanmar]] could experience floods followed by [[drought]]s in coming decades. The Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra river basins support 700 million people in Asia. In India alone, the Ganges provides water for drinking and farming for more than 500 million people. It has to be acknowledged, however, that increased seasonal runoff of Himalayan glaciers led to increased agricultural production in northern India throughout the 20th century. Research studies suggest that climate change will have a marked affect on meltwater in the Indus Basin.
The American River headwaters lie along about along the Sierra Crest from Mount Lincoln in the north () where it adjoins the watersheds of the South Yuba and Truckee Rivers, to Winnemucca Lake in the Mokelumne Wilderness, where it meets the watersheds of the Mokelumne and Carson Rivers. Lands east of the American River watershed divide drain into Lake Tahoe, which flows into the Truckee River. During most years, a significant snowpack builds up in the Sierra Nevada which provides water during the hot, dry summers. In warmer winters much of the precipitation may fall as rain instead, causing flooding, but resulting in lower summer flows due to the lack of snow. Due to California's highly variable weather patterns, runoff volumes in the American River can rise and fall drastically from one year to the next.
Yellowstone National Park spans an area of , comprising lakes, canyons, rivers and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest supervolcano on the continent. The caldera is considered an active volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Half of the world's geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly-intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. In 1978, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
On November 15, Pike recorded the first sight of the distant mountain he called "Grand Peak". It has since been called Pikes Peak in his honor. Pike tried to climb the peak, hoping to get a view of the surrounding area to record on maps, the 14,000-foot summit. Pike's group ascended a lesser summit nearby—likely Mount Miller, which was named for Theodore Miller, one of the soldiers who accompanied Pike. With winter threatening, Pike pressed onward up the Arkansas, and on December 7 the party reached Royal Gorge, a spectacular canyon on the Arkansas at the base of the Rocky Mountains.
Hawaiian volcanoes are characterized by frequent rift eruptions, their large size (thousands of cubic kilometers in volume), and their rough, decentralized shape. Rift zones are a prominent feature on these volcanoes, and account for their seemingly random volcanic structure. The tallest mountain in the Hawaii chain, Mauna Kea, rises above mean sea level. Measured from its base on the seafloor, it is the world's tallest mountain, at ; Mount Everest rises above sea level. Hawaii is surrounded by a myriad of seamounts; however, they were found to be unconnected to the hotspot and its volcanism. Kīlauea has erupted continuously since 1983 through Puʻu ʻŌʻō, a minor volcanic cone, which has become an attraction for volcanologists and tourists alike.
Pikes Peak is the highest summit of the southern Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, in North America. The ultra-prominent fourteener is located in Pike National Forest, west of downtown Colorado Springs, Colorado. The mountain is named in honor of American explorer Zebulon Pike, who was unable to reach the summit. The summit is higher than any point in the United States east of its longitude.
The rock is a large rounded monolith of Archean granite typical of the surrounding region and is an isolated peak at the southeast end of the Granite Mountains. Its appearance is somewhat like the rounded Enchanted Rock of Texas or Uluru in Australia (formerly known as Ayers Rock), although smaller in size. It is located in the high plateau region of central Wyoming, north of the Sentinel Rocks ridge and adjacent to the Sweetwater River. It is accessible from a rest area on Wyoming Highway 220, approximately northeast of Muddy Gap and south-west of Casper.
Yellowstone National Park has one of the world's largest petrified forests, trees which were long ago buried by ash and soil and transformed from wood to mineral materials. This ash and other volcanic debris are believed to have come from the park area itself as the central part of Yellowstone is the massive caldera of a supervolcano. The park contains 290 waterfalls of at least , the highest being the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River at .
Many of the world's largest lakes are located in rift valleys. Lake Baikal in Siberia, a World Heritage Site, lies in an active rift valley. Baikal is both the deepest lake in the world and, with 20% of all of the liquid freshwater on earth, has the greatest volume. Lake Tanganyika, second by both measures, is in the "Albertine Rift", the westernmost arm of the active East African Rift. Lake Superior in North America, the largest freshwater lake by area, lies in the ancient and dormant Midcontinent Rift. The largest subglacial lake, Lake Vostok, may also lie in an ancient rift valley. Lake Nipissing and Lake Timiskaming in Ontario and Quebec, Canada lie inside a rift valley called the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben. Þingvallavatn, Iceland's largest natural lake, is also an example of a rift lake.
In terms of volume, the largest lake in California is Lake Tahoe, located on the California–Nevada border. The area in and around Lake Tahoe is filled with a huge diversity of animals and plants. Many mammals call the Lake Tahoe area home. Included among these are the yellow-bellied marmot, the Douglas squirrel or chickaree, golden-mantled ground squirrel, American martin, mule deer, black bear, coyote, raccoon, beaver, and porcupine.
The "'Kamchatka-Kurile taiga’" ecoregion (WWF ID:PA0604) is a "conifer island" in the middle of the Kamchatka Peninsula, along the Kamchatka River. It is the easternmost example of Siberian taiga. The region has unusual ecological conditions, a "snow forest" that combines low temperatures, high humidity and boreal forest with heavy snowfall. The local ecology is also affected by volcanic activity. The region is about 300 km long (north-south), and averages about 100 km west-east. It is in the Palearctic ecozone, and mostly in the Boreal forests/taiga ecoregion with a Humid continental climate, cool summer climate. It covers .
In the far east of Nepal, the Himalayas rise to the Kanchenjunga massif on the border with India, the third highest mountain in the world, the most easterly summit and the highest point of India. The eastern side of Kanchenjunga is in the Indian state of Sikkim. Formerly an independent Kingdom, it lies on the main route from India to Lhasa, Tibet, which passes over the Nathu La pass into Tibet. East of Sikkim lies the ancient Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan. The highest mountain in Bhutan is Gangkhar Puensum, which is also a strong candidate for the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. The Himalayas here are becoming increasingly rugged with heavily forested steep valleys. The Himalayas continue, turning slightly northeast, through the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh as well as Tibet, before reaching their easterly conclusion in the peak of Namche Barwa, situated in Tibet inside the great bend of the Yarlang Tsangpo river. On the other side of the Tsangpo, to the east, are the Kangri Garpo mountains. The high mountains to the north of the Tsangpo including Gyala Peri, however, are also sometimes also included in the Himalayas.
Yellowstone is the largest geyser locale, containing thousands of hot springs, and approximately 300 to 500 geysers. It is home to half of the world's total number of geysers in its nine geyser basins. It is located mostly in Wyoming, USA, with small portions in Montana and Idaho. Yellowstone includes the world's tallest active geyser (Steamboat Geyser in Norris Geyser Basin), as well as the renowned Old Faithful Geyser, Beehive Geyser, Giantess Geyser, Lion Geyser, Plume Geyser, Aurum Geyser, Castle Geyser, Sawmill Geyser, Grand Geyser, Oblong Geyser, Giant Geyser, Daisy Geyser, Grotto Geyser, the Fan & Mortar Geysers, & the Riverside Geyser, all in the Upper Geyser Basin which alone contains nearly 180 geysers.
In 1848, during the American occupation of Mexico after the Mexican–American War, Raynolds and other U.S. Army personnel were the first confirmed to have reached the summit Pico de Orizaba, the tallest mountain in Mexico, and inadvertently set what may have been a 50-year American alpine altitude record. In 1859, Raynolds was placed in charge of the first government-sponsored expedition to venture into the upper Yellowstone region that was later to become Yellowstone National Park. Heavy winter snowpack in the Absaroka Range of Wyoming prevented the expedition from reaching the Yellowstone Plateau, forcing them to divert to the south and cross Union Pass at the northern end of the Wind River Range. After negotiating the pass the expedition entered Jackson Hole and surveyed the Teton Range, now within Grand Teton National Park.
In 1896, a gold prospector gave McKinley's name to Denali, the tallest mountain in North America at . The Alaska Board of Geographic Names changed the name of the mountain back to Denali in 1975, which is what it was called by locals. The Department of the Interior followed suit in August 2015 as a part of a visit to Alaska by President Barack Obama. Similarly, Denali National Park was known as Mount McKinley National Park until December 2, 1980, when it was changed by legislation signed by President Jimmy Carter.
Ulaan Taiga (, "lit. "red taiga"") is a mountain range in north-western Khövsgöl, Mongolia, between the Darkhad Valley and Mongolia's border with Tuva, Russia. The range covers parts of the Ulaan-Uul, Tsagaannuur and Bayanzürkh sums. Notable peaks include Mt. Lam Taiga (2619m) and Mt. Belchir (3351m). The Shishged River and the Delgermörön have their sources in this area. A part of the area along the border with Tuva has been put under natural protection.
The Nisqually Glacier is one of the larger glaciers on the southwestern face of Mount Rainier in the U.S. state of Washington. The glacier is one of the most easily viewed on the mountain, and is accessible from the Paradise visitor facilities in Mount Rainier National Park. The glacier has had periods of advance and retreat since 1850 when it was much more extensive. It is currently retreating. Measurements made at altitude show that glacier got thicker between 1994 and 1997, suggesting that it will probably begin advancing in the first decade of the 21st century. Nisqually Glacier is the source of the Nisqually River.
Mount Rainier is located in an area that itself is part of the eastern rim of the Pacific Ring of Fire. This includes mountains and calderas like Mount Shasta and Lassen Peak in California, Crater Lake, Three Sisters, and Mount Hood in Oregon, Mount Saint Helens, Mount Adams, Glacier Peak, and Mount Baker in Washington, and Mount Cayley, Mount Garibaldi, Silverthrone Caldera, and Mount Meager in British Columbia. All of the above are dormant, but could return to activity, and scientists on both sides of the border gather research of the past eruptions of each in order to predict how mountains in this arc will behave and what they are capable of in the future, including Mount Rainier. Of these, only two have erupted since the beginning of the twentieth century: Lassen in 1915 and St. Helens in 1980 and 2004. However, past eruptions in this volcanic arc have multiple examples of sub-plinian eruptions or higher: Crater Lake's last eruption as Mount Mazama was large enough to cause its cone to collapse, and Mt. Rainier's closest neighbor, Mount St. Helens, produced the largest eruption in the continental United States when it erupted in 1980. Statistics place the likelihood of a major eruption in the Cascade Range at 2-3 per century.
Mount Rainier is currently listed as a Decade Volcano, or one of the 16 volcanoes with the greatest likelihood of causing great loss of life and property if eruptive activity resumes. If Mt. Rainier were to erupt as powerfully as Mount St. Helens did in its May 18, 1980 eruption, the effect would be cumulatively greater, because of the far more massive amounts of glacial ice locked on the volcano compared to Mount St. Helens, the vastly more heavily populated areas surrounding Rainier, and the simple fact that Mt Rainier is a much bigger volcano, almost twice the size of St. Helens. Lahars from Rainier pose the most risk to life and property, as many communities lie atop older lahar deposits. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), about 150,000 people live on top of old lahar deposits of Rainier. Not only is there much ice atop the volcano, the volcano is also slowly being weakened by hydrothermal activity. According to Geoff Clayton, a geologist with a Washington State Geology firm, RH2 Engineering, a repeat of the Osceola mudflow would destroy Enumclaw, Orting, Kent, Auburn, Puyallup, Sumner and all of Renton. Such a mudflow might also reach down the Duwamish estuary and destroy parts of downtown Seattle, and cause tsunamis in Puget Sound and Lake Washington. Rainier is also capable of producing pyroclastic flows and expelling lava.
According to K. Scott, a scientist with the USGS:
With 26 major glaciers and of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each more than in diameter, with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both crater rims free of snow and ice, and has formed the world's largest volcanic glacier cave network within the ice-filled craters, with nearly of passages.
A small crater lake about in size and deep, the highest in North America with a surface elevation of , occupies the lowest portion of the west crater below more than of ice and is accessible only via the caves.
The Russell Glacier is a medium-sized glacier on the north flank of Mount Rainier, Washington. Named for the geologist Israel Russell, it covers and contains 3.1 billion ft (88 million m) of ice. Starting from its highest point at , the Russell Glacier flows northeast towards the Carbon Glacier and contributes ice to the larger glacier before becoming distinct below . With most of the ice located from to , the glacier only descends to , unlike the much lower extent of the Carbon Glacier. Echo Rock and Observation Rock, two minor sub-peaks of Rainier, lie northwest of this glacier. Meltwater from the glacier eventually reaches the Carbon River.