Heated Magma In Yosemite Valley

The granite formation to the left of Half Dome is El Capitan. This vertical rock formation extends about 3,000 feet (900 meters) from base to summit along its tallest face. View a timelapse of the webcams.

Our 8th grade class would love to go to the Lava Beds National Monument in California. The lava beds would be one of the best educational field trip ever. There is many history and geological stuff along this field trip. There is many fun activities to do at the lava beds. It is also located on the Oregon and California border.

It is currently the largest exposed granite in the world weighing approximately one trillion pounds; although, only one third of the mountain can be seen as a majority of the mountain expands below ground as far as North Carolina. The enormous pluton mountain, as scientifically identified by geologist, was formed by a complex folding and faulting that had subsequently created the Blue ridge mountains. Though what remains as a mystery to many geologist is as to how such a massive granite mountain has become exposed. Although there are several theories that have been publicated to explain such a phenomena none are substantial or advocated the most. While the origins of Stone Mountain are elusive, the correlations of this landmarks with american history are intricately

One of nature's most powerful and influential forces is also one of nature's coldest and slowest processes. These great icy rivers are called glaciers and have formed some of the most beautiful scenery on this planet. These enormous frozen bodies of water are often thousands of feet wide and deep and many miles long. They cover millions of acres of land and drastically change the land into beautiful mountains with many amazing features. One of the areas where glaciers have been most influential is in Yosemite National Park in California. Here almost every glacial feature is shown. However, before this information about glaciers in Yosemite was clear, there was the Yosemite Controversy with

Lava flows of rhyolite and basalt have flowed through parts of Yellowstone as recently as 70,000 years ago. These lava flows destroyed everything in their paths while moving slowly at a rate of a few hundred feet per day, flowing months, or sometimes even several years. They are thick and cover as much as 130 square miles. They have nearly filled the Yellowstone Caldera, and spilled beyond the caldera’s border. These lava flows are responsible for forming four of the nine named plateaus in

Plate tectonics is the theory that the Earth's crust is divided into a number of plates that move because they float on the asthenosphere. Plate tectonics are moved by convection loops driven by geothermal activity. High temperatures inside Earth causes magma to rise into the asthenosphere and eventually reach the base of the Earth's crust. The magma spreads horizontally and cool. The cooling magma moves parts of the crust, creating mountains (Arbogast 290). There are three types of mountains associate with plate tectonics and they are volcanic, fold and block mountains. These are formed as "compressional forces, isostatic uplift and intrusion of igneous matter forces rock upward" (Williams). Volcanic mountains are formed when a tectonic plate

The volcano under Yellowstone National Park is one of the biggest volcanoes in the world. In 2 million years the volcano had make 3 eruptions. There is a probability that the volcano erupts 1 time in a 730,000 chance. There is a chance that a smaller eruption can happen. The lava the volcano throws can destroy everything on the way but it goes very slow. The ash cloud the lava throws can get to huge distances and in his way it can do destroying things like; disrupting transportation systems, kill crops, contaminate water supplies, and many other things.

Mount Saint Helens is an active volcano that is located in the Cascade mountain range in Washington State. This volcano is considered to be one of the most active in the Cascades, and has a complex ecosystem. This volcano remained mostly dormant until May 18, 1980 where it unfortunately erupted and decimated the plant life, wildlife, and forever changed the geography of the surrounding area.

Its rocks, largely granitic in composition are a product of the volcanism that occurred in the area during the subduction of the Pacific plate. Sedimentary and metamorphic rocks are quite rare in Yosemite, as the igneous granite dominates the landscape. (Huber, 1987). There are many different types of granite in Yosemite and the different granitic formations are called ‘suites’. The type of granite depends on what type of granitic magma intruded up into the rocks when the magma rose after the subduction of the Pacific plate (Huber, 1987). There is a large amount of glacial till and volcanic rocks in the Northeastern corner of the park, and pockets of metamorphic rock in the Southeastern and Southwestern parts, and most other rocks in the park are some sort of granite (Huber, 1987). Overall, the nature of Yosemite’s rocks are a product of the various geological processes that formed them.

The Grand Canyon is one of the most amazing natural wonders in the world. It was originally deposited sediment that was lithofied, and turned into sedimentary rock. The rock was then carved out by hydraulic processes (Warneke). These processes, all combined, took almost three to six million years to form the Grand Canyon. Continued erosion by wind and rain in the present time continues to shift what the canyon looks like, and make it different as time goes on ("Grand Canyon Facts").

We went on a weekend trip to Fredericktown, Missouri and stopped at different locations in the area trying to understand the different igneous features we were seeing. The area is packed with igneous exposures from columnar basalts, Precambrian basement rock, granitic ring complexes, volcanic ejecta, to mantle xenoliths. Together, these features provide insight into the overall geology of the region, indicating that this terrain was once an active nested caldera complex (multitude of calderas within calderas). The highly silicic nature of these rocks indicates that calderas formed from the collapsing of rhyolitic dome structures, which sometimes in geologic literature is referred to as “super volcanoes.” The “super volcanoes” here are thought to have formed, the way many calderas do, by a subsurface pluton pushing its way up into the crust and erupting. Once the plutonic material erupts, the land subsides and the central part of the once outstretched region becomes a crater, which is termed caldera. In the case of the St. Francois Mountains and the highly silicic volcanics that are found in the region the plutonic source is potentially granitic in nature. However, there are mafic exposures, which are result of occasional basalt and mafic melts making their way to the surface through mantle source. Geologically, the St.Francois Mountains are complex, and as a regional feature, I do not know the entire evolutionary history for their

The Grand Canyon is filled with different layer of rock,some are older than others and others are bigger.There are

The CaLVO is in charge to avert a volcanic chaos in the state. The experts focus more in the most dangerous volcanoes. California has a big amount of hazardous volcanoes. Some volcanoes will take long to erupt again and thankfully there is ways to find out when that is going to happen. Volcanologist know that some of the volcanoes in California could erupt anytime soon and they will not be able to do nothing about it. The best thing they can do is prepare the region that would get affected by the eruption. Just in California, we have 16 hazardous volcanoes to be worried about; theses type of volcanoes have to be constantly monitored to track levels of unrest. If scientists see something out of place, unusual, they will have to make some conclusions

America’s northwest is home to a super volcano that, if erupted, has the potential to wipe out the majority of the United States. Yellowstone National Park is located within Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming and it spans nearly 3,500-sq.-miles.

The creation of Yosemite dates back to the Precambrian era. The region of what is now Yosemite sat between two continents. The Farallon Plate subducted under the North American Plate and created an arc of volcanoes during the Devonian and Permian periods (Harris, p. 328). The solidification of magma created igneous rock during the Triassic period and in through the Jurassic. On the eastern side of present day Yosemite, the Nevadan mountain range was also forming. The Sierra Nevada Mountains are constructed of granite (Harris, p. 337).