In a lava cave roof, hot gases boil and push molten lava through cracks in the roof’s cooled crust. This lava can spooge out of its stalactite and drop to the ground, creating a stalagmite like this. This formation has a really nice metallic glaze to it, and I saw it in a cave near Bend, OR.
Much as the heyday of the columnar jointing meme seems to be past, I’d like to jump on the bandwagon in support of Washington’s columns as championed on Northwest Geology Field Trips.
Washington is home to what I would argue is some of the raddest columnar jointing around, as it’s easily reached and highly extensive. And by “highly extensive",” I mean Spans-63,000-Square-Miles extensive.
These columns (near Grand Coulee, WA) show an unevacuated lava tube.* The arch of columns would have been the tube’s roof, as those cooled and cracked perpendicularly to the cooling surface (the air.) Underneath this is a layer of lava that cooled in the tube, and beneath that are more columns from the bottom of the flow. Above this tube is the middle section (the entablature) that cooled in a different fashion and thus has some pretty fugly hackly jointing.
Dry Falls, whose walls are composed of columns. You just can’t tell that because it’s so stinkin’ huge from this vantage point.
These columns are the Ellensburg formation, and this exposure is over near Naches, WA.
This is Frenchman Coulee, and is once again composed of columns too distant to see.
Oh, and you know what else Washington has that’s better than anywhere else?
Plaid-clad junkies who don’t shower.***
My advice: visit the Columbia River flood basalts, but avoid Aberdeen after dark.
*At least, that is what an unevacuated lava tube has been pointed out to me as. As always, I could be really incorrect.
**I think.
***I really like plaid.
Unfortunately, my sister and I traded SD cards, and forgot to switch back, so I have only a handful of pictures from my recent vacation. Here are a few of the best:
As the water flows away from the pool, terraces form as minerals collect on little imperfections. These areas collect the microbes.
This is the water from the Grand Prismatic Spring and Excelsior Geyser into the Iron Spring Creek. You can really see how the microbial mats form in water flowing at just the right temperature and velocity.
This was a sweet restored car in West Yellowstone.
…they’re wrong.
After being my go-to caving water bottle for some time, all the bumping, throwing, shoving, and general abuse this water bottle suffered, it finally broke after I chucked it off a eight foot drop, soaking the contents of my pack.
Granted, it wasn’t an official “Nalgene” bottle – it was a little dorkier than that:
After spending the rest of the cave trip thirsty, I decided to remedy that unfortunate and unsafe situation by acquiring the following:
Not only is it excessively shiny and ruggedly handsome, but it’s also supposed to dent instead of breaking.
I’m prepared to put that claim to the test.
