Logging tasks
- Visit the location, and tell me everyone you are submitting answers for.
- Looking at the block in front of you, can you see different layers or composition of layers.
- As you walk around the trail, ignoring the rafted blocks, is the lava field different than the rafted blocks.
- Explain the differences.
- Add a photo of you from the location or of an identifiable item (paper with trackable name). Posting a photo pulled from the internet, or photoshopped will result in instant deletion.
Intro
The hike is very easy and is only a half mile long. Beware in the summer, higher temperatures can make the hike difficult without enough water. No bikes or pets on the trail.
Cinder Cone
During the early part of eruptions some of the first lava that is pushed to the surface is the gas laden type that explodes upwards making many small particles that cool and form a huge pile of pourus cinders. These slowly build up over time to creat the cinder cones around us. It was about 3000 years ago, and a cone was build up just SW of the visitors center, the North Crater cone was formed.
Devils Orchard Flow
When the Devils Orchard flow took place it was large enough that it actually pulled parts of the North Crater cone apart. Those parts will float in a large lava flow, and become known as a ratfted block. Well, the term raft is fairy self explanitory, and block for the large pieces. Those rafted blocks were carried past the visitors center (before it was built of course) and floated them out to make the Devils Orchard. Some of the rated blocks are as long as 300 meters and as high as 20 meters.
Leave no Trace
Remember as you visit these sites to practice Leave No Trace. Please stay on existing trails and roads, and do not gather or take anything. We want these locations to be as good as you are seeing them for future generations. Take pictures and enjoy the locations, but leave the rocks and plants behind.
Information for this cache comes from "Geology of craters of the Moon" by Douglass Owen, and Sonja Melander; USGS geological map of the Inferno Con Quadrangle by Kuntz, Lefebvre, Champion and Skipp.
On Mars
This feature is not unique to this planet. Photos from satelites orbiting mars show giant rafts of hardened lava, that floated away in giant lakes. The rougher (darker grey) areas of the photo show the giant rafts that floated in the directions of teh arrows from another solid piece. The raft shown in this photo near the arrows is a half a kilometer wide and approaching two kilomers long.
