It’s not just Hawaii; America has 169 volcanoes that could erupt

The New York Times

Volcanoes are full of tricks. They can build to a major eruption in a crescendo of shudders and spatters or explode with almost no warning. They can lie in wait under a magnificent snowcap, the centerpiece of a landscape of beauty that they could obliterate the next day, or in 10,000 years, or never again.

And there are more of them in more parts of America than you might think.

The U.S. Geological Survey counts 169 potentially active volcanoes in the country — some straight-fromthe-textbook conical mountains topped with craters and others that hardly look the part at all. About 50 of them in six states are rated high priority or highest priority for monitoring. A few have been active in modern times; others last erupted hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

Deaths linked to flowing lava are relatively rare. Only 659 deaths by lava have been recorded since 1500.

“Lavas normally advance slowly, allowing escape,” University of Bristol volcanologist Sarah Brown said.

Pyroclastic density currents — or PDCs, the swiftflowing plumes of hot gas and volcanic matter — are the No. 1 killers from volcanic eruptions, accounting for nearly 60,000 deaths since 1500. “In general, PDCs move too quickly for people to escape, and death is almost certain for those caught by a PDC,” Ms. Brown said. Statistically speaking, the record suggests that if 1,000 people get caught in a PDC, all but four of them will die.

Here are the locations of volcanoes in America.