Four Craters Lava Field
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| Four Craters Lava Field | |
|---|---|
 Craters of the aptly named Four Craters Lava Field are seen here from the NW on Green Mountain. |
|
| Elevation | 4,924 feet (1,501 m)[1] |
| Location | Oregon, USA |
| Coordinates | Coordinates: [1] |
| Type | volcanic field |
| Age of rock | Holocene?[1] |
| Last eruption | < 50,000 years ago[2] |
Portions of this article include public domain text from the USFS Deschutes & Ochoco National Forests - Crooked River National Grassland.
Four Craters Lava Field is a basaltic volcanic field located south east of Newberry Caldera in the U.S. state of Oregon.[1] The volcanic field covers about 30 square kilometers. Four Pleistocene cinder cones are the source of the flows in the field and are aligned along a fissure trending N 30° W. The cones rise 75 to 120 meters above the flows and the distance between the northern most and southern most cones is about 3.5 kilometers.[2]
Closely related to the Four Craters lava field is Crack-in-the-Ground located at the southwest corner of the field. The eruptions from the field were accompanied by a slight sinking of the older rock surface. This shallow, graben-like sink is about 3 kilometers wide and extends to the south into an old lake basin. Crack-in-the-Ground marks the western edge of this small, volcano-tectonic depression and is nearly 9 meters deep and over a meter wide. The crack is the result of a tension fracture along a hingeline produced by the drapping of Green Mountain lava flows over the edge of upthrown side of the concealed fault zone.[2]
