Mount Mazama Research Paper

The United States currently has many volcanoes, particularly in the Cascade Mountain Range, which includes Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainer, and Crater Lake. Volcanoes have three common features such as craters, caldera, and geysers and hot springs. A caldera is a huge depression that is formed after the eruption from the collapse of a partially emptied magma chamber. In the last million years, ten major caldera formed after eruptions, which included Crater Lake in Oregon. Mount Mazama, also known as Crater Lake, was a large composite volcano that was constructed by the episodic growth of many overlapping shield and composite volcanoes, each of which probably was active for a comparatively brief period, and Mount Mazama has not erupted in 7,700

As a result of Mount Mazama’s eruption, it lost enough material that the weight of the peak of the volcano could not be supported, and it collapsed upon itself, creating a caldera. Mount Mazama continued to have smaller eruptions, which sealed the caldera floor and created a cinder cone within the caldera, which is now called Wizard Island (“The Crater Lake National Park Trust”). Rain and snow continued to melt gradually over 700 to 1500 years filling the caldera, and thus forming Crater Lake. Today, there is a balance between evaporation and precipitation, and the water level in the lake usually fluctuates less than three feet each year (“The Crater Lake National Park Trust”). In terms of geologic time, Crater Lake is very young, and it is believed that humans likely witnessed the explosion. In fact, a sandal was actually found buried in the ash from the eruption, and Klamath tribes have legends of how Crater Lake originated. Thus, creating a tourist attraction in Oregon for visitors to learn more about the geologic features of Crater

Crater Lake has 21 square miles of water that is so intensely blue that it looks like link, and is ringed by cliffs towering up to 2,000 feet above (“National Geographic”). The mountain bluebird, Indian legend says, was grey before dipping into the waters of Crater Lake. The Oregon icon is set in a dormant volcano called Mount Mazama, one in the chain of volcanoes in the Cascade Mountain Range that includes Mount St. Helens. Mount Mazama’s eruption catapulted volcanic ash miles into the sky and expelled so much pumice and ash that the summit soon collapsed, created a huge caldera. Rain and snow accumulated in the caldera, forming a lake more than 1,900 feet deep, the deepest lake in the United States (“National Geographic”). Then, wildflowers, hemlock, fir, and pine recolonized surroundings, and black bears and bobcats, deer and marmots, eagles and hawks returned and crafted Crater Lake National