Results of repeated leveling surveys at Newberry Volcano, Oregon, and near Lassen Peak Volcano, California

Abstract

Personnel from the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory conducted first-order, class-II leveling surveys near Lassen Peak, California, in 1991 and at Newberry Volcano, Oregon, in 1985, 1986, and 1994. Near Lassen Peak no significant vertical displacements had occurred along either of two traverses, 33 and 44 km long, since second-order surveys in 1932 and 1934. At Newberry, however, the 1994 survey suggests that the volcano's summit area had risen as much as 97±22 mm with respect to a third-order survey in 1931. The 1931 and 1994 surveys measured a 37-km-long, east-west traverse across the entire volcano. The 1985 and 1986 surveys, on the other hand, measured only a 9-km-long traverse across the summit caldera with only one benchmark in common with the 1931 survey. Comparison of the 1985, 1986, and 1994 surveys revealed no significant differential displacements inside the caldera. A possible mechanism for uplift during 1931-1994 is injection of approximately 0.06 km3 of magma at a depth of approximately 10 km beneath the volcano's summit. The average magma supply rate of approximately 1 x 10-3 km3/year would be generally consistent with the volcano's growth rate averaged over its 600,000-year history (0.7-1.7 x 10-3 km3/year).