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Mt. St. Helens has many geothermal features both in the summit crater and surrounding landscape. Large volcanoes like Mt. St. Helens not only display these features within their active craters but often times on the sides of the mountains and all the way down to their base.

The steam vents are part of heated snow melt as well as other ground water that have gotten into fissures within the mountain and have been heated by the magma under the surface. Although these features are signs of active volcanoes there are volcanoes that are not considered active that also show these same features due to the very long time that it takes for a volcanoes magma chamber to completely cool and crystallize after active magma supply has ceased.

There are articles on the Cascades Volcano Observatory that explain this venting process in greater detail.

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11y ago

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