During the summer of 2010, Marcy and I went on a Volcano Tour of the Pacific Northwest. Here are some photos from the places we visited…
Ape Cave
The Ape Cave is a lava tube located in Gifford Pinchot National Forest just to the south of Mount St. Helens in Washington. It’s the longest continuous lava tube in the United States and runs for 13,042 feet.
Mount Saint Helens
Mount St. Helens is an active volcano located about 100 miles south of Seattle, WA and 50 miles north of Portland, OR. It is famous for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980 which was the deadliest and economically destructive volcanic event in the history of the United States. 57 people, 250 homes, 47 bridges, 15 miles of railways, and 185 miles of highway were destroyed in the blast.
Painted Hills
Painted Hills is part of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, located in Wheeler County, Oregon. It’s is named after the colorful layers of its hills corresponding to various geological eras, formed when the area was an ancient river floodplain.
Big Obsidian Flow
Big Obsidian Flow was created around 1400 years ago during the most recent eruption of Newberry Volcano in the High Lava Plains of central Oregon. This particular flow erupted from a vent or fissure near the southern wall of the caldera and partially engulfed the Lost Lake pumice ring.
Crater Lake National Park
Crater Lake National Park, established in 1902, is the sixth oldest national park in the United States and the only one in the state of Oregon. The park encompasses the caldera of Crater Lake, a remnant of a destroyed volcano, Mount Mazama, and the surrounding hills and forests. At 1,949 feet deep at its deepest point, it the deepest lake in the United States and the ninth deepest in the world.picasaView plugin: Could not load data from picasaweb.
Hoodoo Spires
The Hoodoo Spires are an outcrop of spires:that have been sculptured by erosion from ash-flow deposits left by the great Mazama eruption. As the ash flows cooled, steam escaped upward along intersecting vertical fractures forming thousands of fuming gas vents. During the many years it took to cool the hot avalanche deposits, these rising vapors cemented the pumice and ash into more solid rock. Erosion by streams, rain, wind and gravity on the canyon walls has etched out these once-underground steam pipes into steep pinnacles.
