Black Butte Crater Lava Field

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Black Butte Crater Lava Field

The Black Butte Crater Lava Field , formerly Shoshone lava field called, is a lava field in Lincoln County in the US state of Idaho .

location

The Black Butte Crater Lava Field is the westernmost of the basaltic lava fields that formed in the Snake River Plain at the beginning of the Holocene . It is about 60 kilometers long, 2 to 5 kilometers wide and has an L-shaped course. It begins in northern Lincoln County about 30 kilometers north of the county seat Shoshone , runs first about 30 kilometers south and then about 30 kilometers west, north past Shoshone and approximately to Gooding .

To the north of the lava field is the Magic Reservoir , a reservoir of the Big Wood River .

Emergence

The lava field was formed during the eruption of the Shoshone volcano, a stratovolcano , around 8100 BC. Chr. ± 350 years. The lava flowed out of the chimney relatively calmly . It flowed mainly through the original valley of the Big Wood River , filled it and also made its kink to the west, whereby the lava field got its L-shaped course. While the Big Wood River later paved its way through the north end of the lava field and continued to flow on its west or north side, the Little Wood River , which formerly flowed into it, was diverted along the south flank of the lava field, so that the two rivers now only meet 40 kilometers unite west of their former confluence.

description

The 1550-meter-high Black Butte in the northeast of the lava field is the original vent of the Shoshone volcano, from which the lava flows out. The bottom of several nested craters is a solidified lava lake that extends over an area of ​​around 2.2 km 2 and from which the crater walls rise steeply up to 30 meters. A system of lava tubes and channels with partly open and partly covered sections extends to the southeast . Part of these lava tubes form the Shoshone Ice Caves , which are cold enough even during the summer that the ice in them remains frozen.

The danger emanating from the lava field is estimated to be very low because it was probably only a single monogenetic volcanic eruption and the lava field, unlike the Craters of the Moon to the east , is not located in a volcanically active rift zone .

Large parts of the lava field are designated as Wilderness Study Area : The Lava Wilderness Study Area in the central area, the Black Butte Wilderness Study Area in the north and the Shoshone Wilderness Study Area in the west.

Web links

Commons : Black Butte Crater Lava Field  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Shoshone volcano. In: www.volcanodiscovery.com. Retrieved January 18, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Black Butte Crater Lava Field. In: www.volcanodiscovery.com. Retrieved January 18, 2019 (American English).
  3. ↑ Black Butte. In: Geographic Names Information System. Retrieved January 18, 2019 (American English).
  4. ^ Shoshone Indian Ice Caves. In: Southern Idaho Tourism. Retrieved January 18, 2019 (American English).

Coordinates: 43 ° 1 ′  N , 114 ° 18 ′  W