For purposes of logging this cache you must answer the following three questions:
1) At the posted coords in the gray rocks below you can see cooling columns of lava. Lava that cooled quickly split into thin columns . Lava that lost heat more slowly cracked into thicker columns. Based on this information, do you think the lava cooled quicker or slower here? Also using the information sign to the left, what type of lava is located here and what does this "type" have a tendency to do?
2) Please proceed to WP2 where you will learn more about this area's geological past. According to the interpretive sign, "Iceage Heirlooms", What did the dying glacier bequeath and in what type of setting?
3) As you walk back to parking keep in mind what you have learned from your walk along the Fire and Ice Interpretive Loop trail. Using information from the interpretive signs, this earthcache lesson and your own personal observations please give at least 2 examples each of proof of this area's fiery and icy past.
4) Mandatory picture at one of the waypoints.
This earthcache is located within the Mt. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest and is placed with permission. There is no physical container located at the posted coords! This earthcache lesson involves the Fire and Ice Interpretive Trail that begins and ends near the Heather Meadows Visitor Center near Austin Pass. This is a fairly easy 0.5 mile loop trail, part of which is paved out to a viewpoint. The posted coordinates will take you to the first interpretive sign. After that you need to go to WP2. You must answer the questions in order to successfully log this earthcache.
D rama is basically a story being acted out for an audience.
Many elements here are involved in making this Drama possible. Some but not all include: A cast of characters, settings, acts, scenes, credits and an ending. Fire and Ice are the stars in this drama and they play a very important role in the production!
The stage set before you is made up of complex geology. Immense faults have moved these rocks at least hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles from their birthplace to be assembled into the gigantic collage that constitutes the older part of the Cascade range. You can picture the action like this: Act 1: Huge lava flows churning down river valleys burying everything: cataclysmic explosions of red hot ash totally incinerating everything in their path clear to the Puget Lowland. Act 2: the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and alpine glaciers grinding great valleys into the volcanic landscape: and last but not least, Act 3: gravity, which brings gigantic pieces of this landscape crashing downwards, devastating the valleys and lowlands below.
For the general purposes of this earthcache lesson we will be focusing on the setting of The Bagley Lakes Valley. The valley standing before you is a classic cirque or corrie where ice has eroded away rock to create a three sided valley. A cirque , (French, from the Latin word circus) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion.
The concave shape of a glacial cirque is open on the downhill side, while the cupped section is generally steep. Cliff-like slopes down which ice and glaciated debris combine and converge from the three or more higher sides. The floor of the cirque ends up bowl-shaped as it is the complex convergence zone of combining ice flows from multiple directions and their accompanying rock burdens, hence it experiences somewhat greater erosion forces, and is most often overdeepened below the level of the cirque's low-side outlet (stage) and its down slope (backstage) valley. If the cirque is subject to seasonal melting, the floor of the cirque most often forms a tarn (small lake) behind the moraine, glacial till or bedrock lip marking the downstream limit of glacial overdeepening of the basin, which serves as a dam at the outlet.
It is always a dramatic encounter between fire and ice when a glacier-clad volcano erupts. Hot lava can flash melt portions of glacial ice triggering mudflows and causing devastation for miles. Or, if the lava is slow moving and the ice is massive, the ice can cool the lava, stopping it in its tracks. As the lava cools, it cracks into hexagonal columns that point toward the source of cooling.
At the posted coords in the gray rocks below you can see cooling columns of lava. Lava that cooled quickly split into thin columns . Lava that lost heat more slowly cracked into thicker columns. Based on this information, do you think the lava cooled quicker or slower here? Also using the information sign to the left, what type of lava is located here and what does this "type" have a tendency to do?
Please proceed to WP2 where you will learn more about this area's geological past. According to the interpretive sign, "Iceage Heirlooms", What did the dying glacier bequeath and in what type of setting? As you walk back to parking keep in mind what you have learned from your walk along the Fire and Ice Interpretive Loop trail. Using information from the interpretive signs, this earthcache lesson and your own personal observations please give at least 2 examples each of proof of this area's fiery and icy past.
There is no ending in sight for this production. Today the volcano lies dormant and the glaciers have retreated up the mountainside. But future eruptions and glaciations are still likely. Fire and ice are not yet finished with this landscape. The drama will continue and the show will go on!
To qualify as a "find", email, or message, (do not post online), the answers to the above questions. Please e-mail or message us at the same time you log your find. Failure to do that in a timely manner will result in a log deletion.
Mandatory: Post a picture of you or your GPSr with the views from the Fire and Ice Interpretive Trail.
We hope you have learned a thing or two about the forces that shaped this area and thanks for visiting!
Credits:
Geology.com
Scientifica.com
Geology.about.com
outdoor.com