Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. national monument and national preserve in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. It is along US 20 between the small towns of Arco and Carey, at an average elevation of 5,900 feet above sea level. The protected area’s features are volcanic and represent one of the best-preserved flood basalt areas in the continental United States.
About Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in brief
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a U.S. national monument and national preserve in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. It is along US 20 between the small towns of Arco and Carey, at an average elevation of 5,900 feet above sea level. The protected area’s features are volcanic and represent one of the best-preserved flood basalt areas in the continental United States. The Monument was established on May 2, 1924. In November 2000, a presidential proclamation by President Clinton greatly expanded the Monument area. The 410,000-acre National Park Service portions of the expanded Monument were designated as Craters ofThe Moon National Preserve in August 2002. It spreads across Blaine, Butte, Lincoln, Minidoka, and Power counties. All three lava fields lie along the Great Rift of Idaho, with some of thebest examples of open rift cracks in the world, including the deepest known on Earth at 800 feet. There are excellent examples of almost every variety of basaltic lava, as well as tree molds, lava tubes, and many other volcanic features. Paleo-Indians visited the area about 12,000 years ago but did not leave much archaeological evidence. A hunting and gathering culture, the Northern Shoshone, pursued elk, bears, cougars, bighorn sheep and other large game until about 2,100 years ago. The most recent volcanic eruptions in the area were likely witnessed by the Shosh one who witnessed a serpent on a mountain who, angered by lightning, coiled around and squeezed the mountain until the liquid rock flowed, fire shot from cracks, and the mountain exploded.
The Kings Bowl and Wapi lava fields, both about2,200 years old, are part of the National Preserves. The lava field is the largest of several large beds of lava that erupted from the 53-mile south-east to north-west trending Great Rift volcanic zone, a line of weakness in the Earth’s crust. Together with fields from other fissures they make up the Lava Beds of Idaho. The area is managed cooperatively by the National Park service and the Bureau of Land Management. The Monument andPreserve encompass three major lava fields and about 400 square miles of sagebrush steppe grasslands to cover a total area of 1,117 square miles. The Monument alone covers 343,000 acres. All of the lava fields are in the much larger Snake Riverplain volcanic province. The monument itself remains remote and undeveloped, with only one paved road across the northern end. Total average precipitation in the Craters Of The Moon area is between 15–20 inches per year. Most of this is lost in cracks in basalt, only to emerge later in springs and seeps in the walls of Snake River Canyon. Older lava fields on the plain have been invaded by drought-resistant plants such as sagebrush, while younger fields only have a seasonal and very sparse cover of vegetation. From a distance this cover disappears almost entirely.
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This page is based on the article Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
