Sunday, December 4, 2011

Field Trip 6 - Island Park and Quake Lake!

 We're are half way there! Only 5 more field trips to go before I catch up with all the other fun stuff I do! I'm waiting on the more recent events because I want all my awesome field trips bunched together.

Moving on...

This field trip we had some tag-a-longs, they were Natural Disaster students who were going to miss their upcoming field trip. That aside, the weather was great and we learned some history around some geologic events.

These signs never get old!

Gray Basalt. This is the lightest color Basalt I've ever seen!

If you look closely you can see the geologic history. (This may not be the best photo for that!)

Lower Mesa Falls

Lower Mesa Falls Close-up!

Pretty tree

This is a cool lone Rhyolite Column.

Upper Mesa Falls.

Meas Falls with a rainbow!
This rainbow appears everyday when the sun is in the right position.


It doesn't look so high from here.

Somehow I got ahead of my group.

Brother Ben

Heather with her Smokey the Bear for scale!
Only you can prevent forest fires!

Island Park, named for the islands of trees.

Edge of the Island Park Caldera.

Big Springs!

Big Big Big Springs!

You can watch the water flow!

The sun came out!
It's amazing that the river just pops right out of the hillside!
I stuck my camera under the water!

This is how it works!

Big river!

You know you're a geologist when...

Katrina huge staroulite! All the other ones in the area are maybe as big as your fingernail. My Professors were both surprised when this giant showed up. It's the biggest one they've ever seen! Way to go Katrina!

How many river beds can you see?

Big horn sheep sighting!

Coolest car in the parking lot! (Next to our 12 seater van you see!)

Debris from the Madison Landslide. (Not pictured but to the left is the visitor center.) 

Stories from the quake 1956. The visitor center is nice. They have a video about the quake and a 180 degree view of the landslide and Earthquake lake. 

Stories from the quake 1956.
To read my Professors story from the earthquake follow the link  http://www.yellowstone-natl-park.com/iya.htm! It's called "The Night of the Bear." It's a good one!

Madison Landslide caused but 1956 earthquake. This is in Montana. My Dad remembers this earthquake. He actually felt it and he was living in North Logan, UT at the time. It was a 7.6 Magnitude quake in Hebgen, MT.

Material deposited from the landslide on the other side of the valley.


Part of the Dolomite Buttress that broke in the 1956 earthquake. 

Informational sign. Oh yeah!

You can see where the Dolomite broke.

The landslide dammed the river creating Earthquake Lake.

Normal fault from the earthquake.

The fault is about 20ft high. On the night of the earthquake there was a a couple camping in this campground.  The earthquake woke them up and the husband walked out of their tent and fell down the slope. 

J-shaped tree

Old highway that went through the valley. The damage is from the earthquake. There has since been a new road built.


This is up at Hebgen Lake.

There is a fault going through the letters.

Cabins that were hit but the seiche waves.

Heather looking epic.


I stuck my camera under water every chance I could.





WE stayed here a long time talking. It gave me a chance to run around like crazy and take pictures.

We often saw these flowers on our field trips.

It really does look like a shooting star!