Spencer Morgan

Crater Lake Geologic History

Crater Lake National Park, located in southern Oregon, is formed from a caldera, “a

depression created by the collapse of the volcano’s structural support due to the underground

magma reservoir emptying through eruptive processes” (“Geology of Crater Lake National

Park”). Understanding the geologic history of Crater Lake and the time recorded in that geology

is important, even for non-geologists, because the processes that formed Crater Lake are still

occurring today. Mount Mazama, the volcano that crater Lake lies on top of and was formed by,

is still considered active; its last eruption was very small and occurred 5,000 years ago, and it is

expected to erupt again in the future (“Crater Lake: Geology”). Geologic formations around the

world, including Crater Lake, are continuously changing at a rate that can be perceived in a

lifetime. Understanding how these formations came about helps us understand and better

appreciate them and how they could change. Learning the history of places like Crater Lake

allows us to develop a sense of timefulness, “an understanding of our place in time, both the past

that came long before us and the future that will elapse without us” (Bjornerud).

Mount Mazama and Crater Lake are part of a volcanic chain called the Cascade Range.

This range is a product of a subduction zone, “a collision zone where a slowly-sliding dense

oceanic plate, the Juan de Fuca Plate, sinks below the less-dense continental North American

Plate;” as the Juan de Fuca Plate sinks below the North American Plate, it melts and releases the

less dense material (water, gases, etc.) that rises and melts and absorbs the surrounding rock,

forming magma that pools and creates magma chambers (“Geology of Crater Lake National

Park”). The oldest rocks in Crater Lake National Park are 420,000-year-old andesite of Phantom

Cone, a conical geologic structure created through the release of lava through a vent in the earth,
and dacite that makes up Mount Scott on the eastern edge of Crater Lake (“Geologic Field-Trip

Guide to Mount Mazama and Crater Lake Caldera, Oregon”). Because Crater Lake National

Park was formed by and contains still-active volcanoes, the majority of the rock that the area is

composed of is igneous rock, rock formed through magma or lava cooling and crystallizing.

Most of the rock in the Crater Lake area is “porphyritic andesite, a volcanic rock intermediate

between the acidic rocks containing much silica and alumina;” it is typically light or dark gray,

sometimes black (Davidson). Dacite and pumice, the next most common igneous rocks found at

Crater Lake; pumice is a light and porous rock that is formed with liquid rock that contains a

great number of gas bubbles, and dacite is a hard, glassy, grey rock. Basalt, “a dense, hard rock

which is dark colored”, can be found at lower elevations in the park and was formed by small

volcanoes on the slopes of Mt Mazama (Davidson). There are also layers of volcanic ash deposit

seen in the rock from large volcanic eruptions (“Geologic Field Trip Guide”).

Many different geologic structures in Crater Lake National Park record past geologic

events that shaped the landscape. In many of the rock structures in the park exhibit cross-cutting,

where molten igneous rock pushes into the cracks of already existing rock and crystallizes.

Devil’s Backbone, one of the geologic structures in the park, is “a vertical wall of dark andesite

lining the cliff face and measuring about 1,000 feet long by 50 feet across” that was created

through cross-cutting and has been left standing alone after the rock that it pushed through was

eroded (“Devil’s Backbone”). Another feature of Crater Lake is Pumice Castle. This formation is

made up of pumice that erupted from a vent approximately 70,000 years ago (“Geologic Field

Trip Guide”). The large eruption of Mount Mazama that created the caldera happened in two

phases 7,700 years ago. The first phase was a Plinian eruption, a large explosive eruption that

sends a column of dark tephra (rock and ash) into the air, that caused the “eruption column to
collapse on itself and send pyroclastic flows down the north and east flanks; the second phase

opened ring vents around the peak that “acted as a wider dispersion path for a larger volume of

magma to escape the reservoir” (“Geology of Crater Lake”).

The caldera of Crater Lake National Park and the large volcanic eruption that caused it

are very important to the geologic history of the Pacific Northwestern Region. The the tephra

launched into the air by the Plinain eruption of the first phase spread volcanic ash around the

entire region and up into Canada. The Mount Mazama ash is “a useful Holocene stratigraphic

marker throughout the Pacific Northwest United States, adjacent Canada, and offshore”

(“Geologic Field Trip Guide”). Mount Mazama’s eruption 7,700 years ago is an extremely

significant geologic event because the it spread ash all around the region that is now used as a

dating reference for locations and geologic formations.

 Works Cited

Bjornerud, Marcia. Timefulness: How Thinkind Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World.

Princeton, New Jearsey, Princeton University Press, 2018.

“Crater Lake: Geology.” National Park Service,

https://www.nps.gov/crla/planyourvisit/upload/Geology-508.pdf.

Davidson, N.H. “The Rocks of Crater Lake.” Nature Notes From Crater Lake, vol 17,

http://larryeifert.com/craterlakefoundation.org/library/nature-notes/vol17-rocks-crater-

lake.htm. Accessed February 19, 2021.

“Devil’s Backbone.” Crater Lake Institute, http://www.craterlakeinstitute.com/research-at-

crater-lake/geology/geologic-features/devils-backbone/.

“Geologic Field Trip Guide to Mount Mazama and Crater Lake Caldera, Oregon.” US

Department of the Interior Geological Survey,

https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2017/5022/j1/sir2017-5022J1.pdf.

“Geology of Crater Lake National Park.” US Geological Survey, https://www.usgs.gov/science-

support/osqi/yes/national-parks/geology-crater-lake-national-park.