Park Features
Some notable park features created by this huge eruption are:
- The Pumice Desert: A very thick layer of pumice and ash leading away from Mazama in a northerly direction. Even after thousands of years, this area is largely devoid of plants due to excessive porosity (meaning water drains through quickly) and poor soil composed primarily of regolith.
- The Pinnacles: When the very hot ash and pumice came to rest near the volcano, it formed 200-to-300-foot (60 to 90 m) thick gas-charged deposits. For perhaps years afterward, hot gas moved to the surface and slowly cemented ash and pumice together in channels and escaped through fumaroles. Erosion later removed most of the surrounding loose ash and pumice, leaving tall pinnacles and spires.
- Other park features
- Mount Scott is a steep andesitic cone whose lava came from magma from Mazama's magma chamber; geologists call such volcano a parasitic or satellite cone. Volcanic eruptions apparently ceased on Scott sometime before the end of the Pleistocene; one remaining large cirque on Scott's northwest side was left unmodified by post-ice age volcanism.
- In the southwest corner of the park stands Union Peak, an extinct volcano whose primary remains consist of a large volcanic plug, which is lava that solidified in the volcano's neck.
- Crater Peak is a shield volcano primarily made of andesite and basalt lava flows topped by andesitic and dacite tephra.
- Timber Crater is a shield volcano located in the northeast corner of the park. Like Crater Peak, it is made of basaltic and andesitic lava flows, but, unlike Crater, it is topped by two cinder cones.
- Rim Drive is the most popular road in the park; it follows a scenic route around the caldera rim.
- Llao Rock on the north side rises 1,800 feet (550 m) above the lake, with a 1.3-mile (2.1 km) trail from Rim Drive leading to the summit.
- The Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile (4,260 km) long distance hiking and equestrian trail that stretches from the Mexican to Canadian borders, passes through the park.
- Old-growth forests covering 50,000 acres (20,000 ha).
Read more about this topic: Crater Lake National Park
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