Intermontane Plateaus - Physiographic Provinces - Colorado Plateau Province - Volcanic Features

Volcanic Features

Volcanic features occur in abundance in the Plateau province. Some of the high plateaus in the north are capped with remnants of heavy lava flows of early eruption. A group of large volcanoes occurs on the limestone platform south of the Grand Canyon, culminating in Mount San Francisco (Humphreys Peak) (12,794 feet (3,900 m), a moderately dissected cone, and associated with many more recent smaller cones and freshlooking lava flows. Mount Taylor in western New Mexico is of similar age, but here dissection seems to have advanced farther, probably because of the weaker nature of the underlying rocks. The dissection has resulted in removing the smaller cones and exposing many lava conduits or pipes in the form of volcanic necks or buttes. The Henry Mountains in southwestern Utah are peculiar in owing their relief to the doming or blistering up of the plateau strata by the underground intrusion of large bodies or cisterns (laccolites) of lava, now more or less exposed by erosion.

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