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Island Park Caldera
Island Park Caldera
Phase Yellowstone Caldera or the Huckleberry Ridge Caldera. These calderas are in an area called Island Park that is famous for its beautiful forests, large springs, clear streams, waterfalls, lakes, ponds, marshes, wildlife, and fishing. Harriman State Park is situated in the caldera. Snowmobiling, fishing, and Nordic skiing, and wildlife viewing are popular activities in the area. The peaks of the Grand Tetons are visible looking southeast from places in the caldera. To the southwest of the caldera lies the Snake River Plain that was formed by a succession of older calderas in the path of the Yellowstone hotspot.
What is commonly called the Island Park Caldera is actually two calderas, one nested inside the other.[1] The older and much larger caldera is the Island Park Caldera with approximate dimensions of 58 miles (93 km) by 40 miles (64 km). It is the source of the Huckleberry Ridge Tuff that is found from southern California to the Mississippi River near St. Louis. This supereruption (2500 cubic kilometers) occurred 2.1 million years BP and produced 2,500 times as much ash as the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. The caldera that is clearly visible today is the later Henry’s Fork Caldera that is the source of the Mesa Falls Tuff. It was formed in an eruption of more than 280 cubic kilometers 1.3 million years BP. The two nested calderas share the same rim on their western sides, but the older Island Park Caldera is much larger and more oval and extends well into Yellowstone Park.[2] The Island Park Caldera is sometimes referred to as the First
See also
• Yellowstone hotspot
References
[1] Wood and Kienle, 1990, Volcanoes of North America: United States and Canada: Cambridge University Press, 354p., p.263-267 [2] Newhall and Daniel Dzurisin, 1988, Historical Unrest at Large Calderas of the World: U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1855
External links
• Yellowstone and Island Park calderas Coordinates: 44°20′N 111°20′W / 44.33°N 111.33°W / 44.33; -111.33
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_Park_Caldera" Categories: Volcanic calderas of the United States, Volcanoes of Idaho, Hotspot volcanoes, Pliocene volcanism, VEI-8 volcanoes, United States geology stubs, Volcanology stubs This page was last modified on 19 May 2009, at 01:06 (UTC). All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) taxdeductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers
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