Geology Lesson

On the remainder of the trip from Jackson to Seattle we made a few stops worth noting. First, the Grand Tetons are right outside of Jackson. They are absolutely gorgeous.

Grand Tetons.... looking very small.

Then we took a small detour to go see the Craters of the Moon lava fields in Idaho. Yes folks, you heard correctly; there are lava fields in Idaho! ... and you thought there only potatoes there! They are no longer active and haven’t been for about 10 million years. Side note; on the drive out towards the lava we passed the world’s first nuclear power plant, which is now a tourist attraction, but only during the summer L otherwise we would have seen that too! 

Why there are lava fields in Idaho makes so much more sense when you learn the science behind it. It is a vestige of the same hotspot  (or caldera)  that currently makes mud boil and geysers erupt from Yellowstone National Park! Side note; that caldera is a supervolcano, poised to wipe humanity off the face of the Earth, but we will save that blog post for when it occurs. So, back to the whys and wherefores of the Idaho lava fields. Back in the day, the continent's crust was moving Southwest as the hotspot essentially stayed in place, carving out the Snake River Plain and settling at its current location: Yellowstone! How fascinating! I found it to be a very satisfying explanation for why lava fields exist in Idaho.

This map is the interactive display. I added the colored shapes to highlight the lava fields (diamond), Yellowstone (circle), direction of continental shift (arrow), and Jackon, WY (orange spot). The dotted rings are the path the hotspot took as it progressed to Yellowstone.

Map of hotspot movement over the last 10 million years.

Lava formations

Us at Craters of the Moon

Sagan loved it !