Geology of the Lassen volcanic area
Lassen Volcanic National Park is located in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. Pacific Oceanic tectonic plates have plunged below the North American Plate in this part of North America for hundreds of millions of years. Heat from these subducting plates has fed scores of volcanoes in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia over at least the past 30 million years.
About Geology of the Lassen volcanic area in brief
Lassen Volcanic National Park is located in the Pacific Northwest region of the U.S. Pacific Oceanic tectonic plates have plunged below the North American Plate in this part of North America for hundreds of millions of years. Heat from these subducting plates has fed scores of volcanoes in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia over at least the past 30 million years. Phreatic eruptions, dacite and andesite lava flows along with cinder cone formation have persisted into modern times. The only activity since then has been the constant bubbling of mud pots and steaming of fumaroles from the various geothermal areas. However, a potential exists for renewed vigorous volcanic activity that could threaten life and property in the area. The Lassen volcanic area lies at the southern extremity of the Cascade Range, which extends northward some 500 mi through Oregon and Washington and into British Columbia. The Cascade Volcanoes are fed by heat generated as the Gorda and Juan de Fuca tectonics plates are being subducted below the much larger but lighter North American plate. The higher the silica content, the greater the ability of the magma to trap and hold on to gas and water vapor. When high-silica magma rises to the Earth’s surface, the trapped gases and vapors can erupt explosively to produce ash clouds and pyroclastic flows that consist of superheated gas, ash and volcanic fragments.
Eruptions of basalt magma typically produce elongate lava flows, as well as cinder cones, around volcanic chains of vents aligned in a north or northwest direction. Examples include Poison Buttes, Buttes Tumble, Tumble Tumble Mountain, Prolonged Tumble Buttes and Prospect Mountain. The area lies the west of the Sacramento Mountains and the east of the Klamath Mountains. To the west lies the Prospect Mountains and Prospect Peak. The east lies the Hat-Sugar Valley and Potato Potato Valley area, the side of the Hattes Valley and the Red Lake Mountain area, and the Prospect Peak-Red Cinder area, east of Hattes Creek and the Prolonging Tumble Cinder Area. The park is in the southernmost part of. the Cascade Mountain Range in thePacific Northwest region of the United States. It lies the south of the Pacific Ocean known collectively as the ‘Pacific Ring of Fire’ and is home to the 16 other major Cascade Volcanooes. It is also the site of the largest volcano in the world, Mount Tehama, which is about 11,000 ft in height. The lava plateau that the park sits on was formed by volcanic-derived mud flows called lahars that included nearby but now extinct Mount Yana and Mount Maidu to become the Tuscan Formation. About 600,000 years ago, Mount. Yana started to rise as a stratovolcano in the southwestern corner of the park, eventually reaching an estimated 11,00ft in height, and is now extinct.
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This page is based on the article Geology of the Lassen volcanic area published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
