Laboratory Information:
Cascades Volcano Observatory
1300 SE Cardinal Court
Building 10, Suite 100
Vancouver, WA 98683-9589
Phone: 360-993-8900
Fax: 360-993-8980
Website: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/
Agency/Department: Dept. of Interior
Region: Far West
Background/History of the Laboratory:
The U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano
Observatory (CVO) strives to serve the public interest by
helping people to live knowledgeably and safely with volcanoes and other natural hazards including
earthquakes, landslides, and debris flows, in the western United States and elsewhere in the world.
Our goal
is to provide accurate and timely information pertinent to the assessment, warning, and mitigation of
natural
hazards. We assess hazards before they occur by identifying and studying past hazardous events, their
products, ages, and areas that would be affected by similar events in the future. We provide warnings
during
volcanic crises by intensively monitoring restless volcanoes and interpreting results in the context
of current
hazards assessments. We investigate and report on hazardous events after they occur to hone our
assessment and prediction skills and to provide information for use in land-use management, emergency
response plans, and public education.
CVO also studies the impact of natural processes on our environment,
including the effects of volcanic gases
on the atmosphere, increased sediment transport on streams and life forms that depend on them, and various
other geologic or hydrologic processes on the landscape.
We are in the business of helping to keep natural processes
from becoming natural disasters. We work closely
with other government agencies, public officials, emergency response groups, the business community,
educators, and concerned citizens - real people with real-world concerns that include natural hazards.
We
measure our success not by what we know, but rather by the degree to which society knows what we know,
and
do not know, about the sometimes hazardous environment in which we live.
