Jordan Craters

Unfortunately, my post on Mt. St. Helens isn't quite ready yet - I spent yesterday going to a lecture on geomorphology on Mars at the Northwest Geological Society in Seattle, and have a big test tomorrow to study for. (Those lectures make my month, and this one was really great. And an added perk: the school pays for our gas and the fancy buffet dinner. Swanky!)

In it's stead, here are some pictures from Jordan Craters, a small volcanic area in Eastern Oregon.

"The 27-square mile olivine basalt lava flow is estimated to be between 4000 and 9000 years old, based on the degree of lichen development on the rocks. An 18-acre flow within the field is thought to be less than 100 years old because not even lichens have begun to colonize."

It's fairly petite, as lava fields go, but really cute. (Bonus: the surrounding countryside is gorgeous.) This picture encompasses about half of the lava field. The foreground is a line of spatter cones. In the mid-ground, you can see the largest of the cinder cones - Coffee Pot Crater. The background are the lava flows themselves.

(Adapted from: Bruce R. Otto and Dana A. Hutchison, The Geology of Jordan Craters, Malheur County, Oregon, The Ore Bin, Vol. 39, No. 8, August 1977)

Coffee Pot Crater, from the rim. The detached wall block is on the right.

These are the reddest scoria I've ever seen - it really resembled raw hamburger at times. In other places, the scoria is a dark black. I hadn't seen this concentration of scoria before, but since it's a cinder cone, scoria is everywhere! It makes climbing out of the crater a bit tortuous.

This is the detached wall block, seen from the side.

The crater floor.

This is the side wall of the crater, with some stratigraphy present.

FYI: There are signs saying that all wheel drive is necessary, but if you're an awesome driver like me, the minivan'll make it.

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Unfortunately, we didn't get to explore the whole lava field, because I had to drop my mum off in Boise because her uncle died unexpectedly. After that, the stalwart minivan died in the deserts of Nevada. But that's another story.

Mt. St. Helens Day tomorrow!

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the May 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens!
To say Mt. St. Helens makes me really happy is an understatement.

Fort Rock Pictures!

Obligatory Retina Update: My eye is doing well, and I even managed to pass the Driver's Licensing eye test. It only gets tired after studying/being in class for several hours. That makes life a little difficult, but hey, I'm not blind. (!)




These are all from Fort Rock, a really nice tuff ring out in Eastern Oregon. It's the remnants of a volcano that erupted many times through a lake, producing a ring of layered tuff that was then eroded by the lake. I visited there last summer on the way to Jordan Craters (a small lava field with several cinder cones, also in Eastern Oregon.) It was fascinating to learn more about phreatomagmatic (lava + water) eruptions. Also, it was gorgeous!

Retina update holla.

So, my surgery was good and really, quite painless. (It was my first surgery, so I didn't know what to expect from the whole procedure.)
It's the recovery that's being a pain.
Not even the pain, so much, as the inconvenience of a large gas bubble floating about my eye, the pain of the swollen eye-lid, and the bright-red blood-shot eye that oozes grossness.
I also get these wicked headaches in class: it starts as mere confusion, in my first class. Then, after my second, the headache begins in my front right cortex, pain being send directly from the eye that pissed at having to focus on white boards coated in light. Eventually, it begins to feel as though someone has hit me with a brick. I'd like to look away, buuut I can't be rude and stop paying attention, especially with the chem professor who already hates me. Next, the headache progresses down into my jaw, driven by the Tylonol-Ibepropheun combo I've downed, and will linger there until bedtime. By evening, even a dose of hated Percoset doesn't cut the pain in my jaw.

But, on the upside, I can see the board. We started electricity, which I'm finding surprising interesting, as well as the new-fangled integral in calculus class. Chemistry will never not suck, but I'm determined to get my C without letting another professor who hates me give me another head trip. If it were really that hard, it wouldn't be a 100-level class.
Necessary as all those might be, none of them are as interesting as the GSA bookstore magazine. I'm REALLY excited to buy "Kinematics and Dynamics of Lava Flows." How awesome is that?

Technically, that's algebra.