Thursday, March 13, 2014

Where in the West: March 2014

I've got two photos for this Where in the West challenge: same location, slightly different viewing angle. If you enlarge these, you'll notice some distinctly volcanic features, three of which are nearly in a line and in Photo 2 start in the lower left corner and go toward the center of the photo.
Photo 1
Photo 2
I took these photos on a recent flight between Reno and Seattle; the general location should be fairly easy. I'd like the names of the three main volcanic features and what they are. There are, no doubt, other features that could be mentioned, some of which can't easily be seen in these airliner photos because of the washed out colors and distance. Also, for any of you really familiar with this area (and I know of at least one or two readers who are), the area in the lower center and right of Photo 1 and Photo 2, contain some features -- volcanic or otherwise -- which may or may not be of note.

6 comments:

Lockwood said...

Big Hole, Hole in the Ground, and Fort Rock. Plus, across the middle right of both photos, you can see the northern extent of basin and rage faulting tapering out and being buried under younger volcanics as it approaches the High Lava Plains province.

Lockwood said...

Oh, and Big Hole and Hole in the Ground are Maars, and Fort Rock is a tuff ring.

Lockwood said...

And after going and poking around in some other resources, I suspect the lightly "frosted" areas represent Mazama pumice, but that's best considered a conjecture.

Silver Fox said...

I figured I could leave it to a geoblogger who blogs about Oregon geology to recognize the area! Thanks for the detail and extra info. Didn't really consider the Basin and Range aspect of things. And it does seem that there should be some Mazama pumice lying around in the area -- there certainly are some good collecting areas a bit up the Bend highway (highway 97).

Dan McShane said...

Just catch up and Lockwood beat me to it and then some.

Silver Fox said...

Yeah, and I just wish I had enough time to post a follow up with some links - but so far, not happening!