COMPIALATION OF FIELD CAMP

WRITE-UPS
BY TAYLOR WESTLUND

MAY-JUNE 2014

UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

Taylor Westlund, Brian Marion

Craters of the Moon Write-up
May 21 2014
Craters of the Moon:
Our Interpretation
1)
Youngest

UNITS
Fractures: The youngest and oldest of our mapped units, the fractures are hard to age date because
they are not connecting throughout the whole map area (even though they are related) however we can
tell from one of the fractures through Big Grey that it is still actively fracturing.
Big Grey: The youngest of our volcanic flows, Big Greys flow started from the south-eastern most
volcano in our mapping area (BG). Its rocks tend to boast the largest of diameter vesicles and the most
plant growth. It also is the lightest colored unit in our mapping area and is comprised overwhelmingly of
Pahoehoe lava. There is field evidence showing Big Grey overlapping both Just Spatter, Cave Flow and
Holy Incline. Big Grey is also younger than any of our Cinder Cones, and Volcanoes because Big Grey is
free and clear of any pyroclastics that should be covering it, if it was older than those units.
Just Spatter: A large flow comprising of both pahoehoe and aa, Just Spatter flows out in all directions
form the spatter cones in the northwestern corner of our mapping area (JS). Just Spatter is overlain by
Big Grey, however we were unable to tell the age relationship between Just spatter and Holy Incline,
due to the rubble and weathering surrounding the contact zone. From hand sample the units do not
seem to be the same rock unit, with different color and vesicles concentration and size. Just spatter is
also comprised of multiple pyroclastic vents producing both black and red debris. The lava flows from
this area do not have much plant growth and the lava has smaller vesicles than that of Big Grey.
Holy Incline: The most interesting and difficult to understand feature of our map area, Holy Incline has a
very debatable history. My partner and I believe that Holy Incline was once a big magma tube, or half
circle, that half surrounded Broken Top. From pressure build up, the magma inside busted out and left
the large fault like feature where it stands today. Overtime lava flows covered up the lava that flowed
out (Just Spatter and Big Grey). This theory also helps to explain the lava up of the northern side of the
Broken Top and the other random rock features on Broken Tops eastern side. The strike varied between
100o-340o depending on location with an average dip being 250
Cave Flow: With no real good data to prove otherwise, we believe that Cave Flow is the oldest of the
lava flows. It is overlapped by both Just Spatter and Big Grey. The source of Cave Flow seems to be a
couple of large depressed, now cave like structures that inflated and after the collapse allowed lava to
flow away from it in all directions. While exploring around Cave Flow, we found no visible evidence for
pyrocalstics, leading us to believe that it is younger than any of the cinder cones.
Parking Lot: A large cinder cone with some smaller cinder cones to its southern side, Parking Lot is hard
to age date amongst following cinder cones and volcanoes because pyroclastic material looks similar
and does not stay separated to distinguish age. Parking lot tended to be mostly red. Finding no evidence

of Parking Lots pyroclasics debris on surrounding flows, leaves us to determine that it must be older
than the surrounding lavas.
Broken Top: Broken Top must be older than Holy Incline, for Holy Incline rests on Broken Top, but, just
like Parking Lot, we are unable to determine the age of Broken Top to the surrounding cinder cones. The
pyroclastics from Broken Top tend to lean more towards the black and brownish red scale, while most
other pyroclastics are red and/or black.

Oldest

Are we there yet?: Tall and proud, Are we there yet? is the largest volcano in our mapping area. Full of
shrubs and trees, Are we there yet? Shows signs of being the oldest volcano in the area. Its flank is
surrounded by lava flowing around it, it is massive in size and has lots of scoria in both red and black (a
noticeable change in color happens about halfway down the mountain.) Are we there yet? Has lots of
mini cones connected to it. We grouped them all as one event because none of the smaller cones
seemed to produce lava flows and appear to be mini Are we there yet?s.
2)
a) When the hotspot sat underneath the current Craters of the Moon location, the mantle plume
heated and thinned the crust relative to the surrounding areas at the time. As the North
American plate slide over the hotspot which was under this location some 10 million years ago,
basin and range extension pulled the crust apart in this area. This extension has released
pressure on the heated, and thinned crust, causing magma to erupt at the surface from
decompression melting.
b) Multiple fissures striking NW-SE cut straight through this region. These are in line with the
multiple horst-graben faulting surrounding the basin caused by Basin and Range extension of
the western United States. The volcanism caused by this extension bears a different signature
than the volcanism caused by the hotspot currently in Yellowstone. The Yellowstone hotspot
erupts purely rhyolitic lavas while this extension has caused basaltic lavas to erupt on to the
surface present time to 10 million years since the hotspot has been here.
3)

Assumptions for area and volume of Broken Top cinder cone lavas:
Max thickness of the lavas is to be assumed to be 5m.

The area the lavas cover, assuming continuous coverage with no erosional breaks, covers
roughly 0.798 km2. The volume, given an average thickness of 5m comes out to be 3.9905 km3 or
roughly 4 km3. This is slightly smaller than the average volume of a shield volcano in the Eastern Snake
River Plain of ~5 km3. 9
Our thanks go out to Dennis, James (TA), Keith, and each other for answering our questions with more
questions and constantly giving us more to look for and the ability to come to these conclusions. As well
as the National Park website for providing us with general history of the Yellowstone Hotspot.

Taylor Westlund
Date: May 24, 2014
Project: Timber Hill Hazard Assessment
Company: Developers Insurance Agency

To who it may concern,

After thorough mapping in the Timber Hill area the hazards in the area are as follows:
Earthquakes:
A normal fault, has lifted up Timber Hill to its current height separating, and lifting it from the
lower lying Black Sabbath Basalt just down on the plateau. The displacement between the two
basalt plateaus is quite large indicating that numerous earthquakes were needed to raise Timber
Hill to the height it is today. The magnitude of past earthquakes in unknown.
Landslides and Rockfall:
The underlying rock beneath the basalt is an unstable, and in some areas poorly consolidated,
Santana Sandstone/Siltstone mixture. This weaker rock is likely to give out, and erodes faster
than the overlying basalt leading to frequent and dangerous rockslides, landslides taking
anything built upon it.
Flashfloods:
Valleys in this region pose their own risks because Timber Hill is in an arid region, infrequent rain
can lead to flooding when it precipitates a lot in a short period of time. All this rain water will
just flow off the land, instead of being soaked into the soil, and be channeled into the valleys
causing quick forming and moving floods.
Volcanism:
Covering the surrounding land in eyesight is mostly Black Sabbath Basalt. Where there is basalt,
there must have been some sort of volcanic event. While I am not aware of the recurrence
interval of this volcanic event, it still poses some hazard, especially ash falls and pyroclastic flows
are some of the hazards associated with volcanic events, which pose their own health hazards.
Ways to minimize risk:
The best places to build will be in the middle of plateaus so the eroding cliff faces do not fall and
take homes with them. Multiple road should be laid down in case others get covered, ripped
apart or washed away. The worst places to build would be in valleys, and close to the cliff face.
It will be impervious any homes be built with a strong base up to earthquake codes for
residential housing.

Taylor Westlund
May 28, 2014
Badger Pass Mapping Project
Field Camp 2

To who it may concern,

Badger Pass, located in Beaver Creek County, about 40 minutes west of Dillon, Montana is an
area that has undergone a lot metamorphism, and faulting. There are three main units in this mapping
area, they are Dirty Eyeball, Stella, and Mississippi Mud (descending in age). The purpose of this project
was to map the units and find the contacts between the hydrothermal and contact metamorphism. The
importance of this mapping project is to gain the knowledge of where to drill for core and then dig a
profitable mine.
The methods used for mapping Badger Pass are as follows: three days of extensively mapping
the area to fully cover and understand the local geology, strike and dip collecting, identifying rocks with
hand samples and hand lenses, and looking for faults and contacts metamorphism and hydrothermal
metamorphism. To help better gain an understanding where contacts were in the area, my partner and I
thoroughly walked the contacts.
Results found from our field work show that the majority of the area is Mississippi Mud; a
Mississippian limestone, that when metamorphosed, will easily show thin calcite veins and/or enlarged
crystals depending on the type of metamorphism. Another limestone found in the area, Dirty Eyeball,
Permian in age, showed chert lenses, and showed metamorphism similarly to the Mississippi Mud. Stella
was another common unit found in the mapping area. Stella is a Pennsylvanian quartzite that
commonly shows alteration of color when metamorphosed. The area had two identifiable faults. My
partner and I found both a strike-slip fault and a thrust fault in the northwestern portion of the area,
lifting the Mississippi Mud to equal height of the Stella. The strike-slip fault separated the southwestern
region from the south central region. The largest structure in the area is an anticline- syncline unit which
can be found in the middle of the Badger Pass mapping area.
Finding of the faults in the area help to explain where and why the fluids for the hydrothermal
metamorphism can be found and how they traveled, as it is easier for fluids to move through cracks that
have already formed in bed rocks. We have identified an igneous intrusion, and outlined it in our
geologic map. The contact metamorphism slightly overlaps the hydrothermal metamorphism and can be
found by identifying abnormally large grain sizes in hand sample and the minerals have had time to
regrow, with lots of calcite veins from the hydrothermal metamorphism.
The best places to place drill holes would be in the southwestern portion of the mapping area
(more specifically the region right in-between the contact metamorphism and the hydrothermal
metamorphism, and the areas around the other mines). This area has experienced the most
metamorphism, allowing it be the most profitable area to mine. The metamorphism in the area easily
allowed fluids to travel through depositing precious metals in the cracks of the limestone.
For this project I would like to thank my mapping partner Justin Wilson, TA James Murhead,
teacher Dennis Geist and fellow students Sam MacKinnon and Clayton Shultz for their input, advice, and
ideas for this project.

Taylor Westlund
June 5, 2014
Field Camp 2
Rochester Creek
Rochester Creek vs Block Mountain
The major differences between Rochester Creek and Block Mountain are the type of
deformation. Rochesters rocks deformed ductily while Block Mountain experienced brittle deformation.
The principal stresses at both locations are all orientated in the same direction. The anticlines and
synclines at Block Mountain are pointing in the north and the thrust faults are dipping to the west, while
many of the dips at Rochester are also dipping to the west. Some of the hinges at Rochester were
pointing to the north, while some were plunging towards the south. Overall this area experienced their
deformation events at the same time.

Conclusion:
Even though this area is at risk for multiple geologic hazards including flooding, landslides, and
volcanism, the availability to sturdy ground would lead to me say that building in the specified
areas would be an acceptable risk.