Crater Lake, crater lakes
I recently went on a trip to Crater Lake in Oregon. I’ve been there before, and each time I’ve been impressed by its transcendent beauty and other-worldliness, and fascinated by its history.
The lake, in case you don’t know, is not only the deepest in the US, but of unusual clarity even for lakes of this type (which tend to be clear because they are not fed by streams). Here’s a photo I took of it:
One of the most fascinating aspects of Crater Lake is that it was formed about 7,700 years ago after an ancestral mountain (Mazama) experienced such a massive explosion of its innards that its outer shell could not support its own weight and collapsed, probably within a few hours or at most a couple of days. The natives of the area probably witnessed the spectacular sight of a mountain the size of present-day Rainier suddenly disappearing. No wonder they retain legends of an epic battle between a sky god and a god of the underworld, a struggle that destroyed the mountain and created the lake.
Volcanoes fascinate me, and caldera lakes (the proper technical term) are one of their loveliest and most mysterious manifestations, even if the mountain is gone (or never was; some caldera lakes result from eruptions of fairly low shield volcanoes).
Crater Lake’s setting and blueness makes it especially beautiful. But lakes of this kind are often extremely picturesque, as evidence by many websites that specialize in photos of them. I was stunned to discover there is even one in Germany, formed by a volcanic explosion 12,900 years ago. These days it looks tamed and domesticated:
Very different from many of its wilder cousins:
The largest lake of this kind is Lake Toba in Indonesia. Ever hear of it? I hadn’t either, till now. It’s the remnant from a supervolcano that erupted some time between 69,000 and 77,000 years ago, and is thought to have been the “largest known explosive eruption on Earth in the last 25 million years.” That’s formidable.
And here it is:
The setting and color is not as spectacular as Crater Lake, but the size sure eclipses it. Toba is 62 by 19 miles, whereas Crater Lake is a mere 6 by 5 miles, although somewhat deeper.
Ah. You were out in my neck of the woods, then.
Volcanoes interest me also. My favorite national park, Lassen Volcanic, is not far from Crater Lake. Like ancestral Mt. Mazama, Mt. Tehama collapsed but did not form a lake as the southeastern rampart crumbled completely – the wreckage forms the southern part of the park. Mt. Lassen was originally just an excrescence on Tehama’s northern flank. You might be interested in visiting it someday – Lassen Volcanic is probably the National Park system’s best-kept secret. The place is never particularly crowded.
Brian Swisher:
I would very much like to visit Lassen, but apparently it’s only really open (for hiking and driving inside the park, that is) in the summertime. But summer in the surrounding area is tremendously hot, not the best time to visit. And summer is a nice time where I live, so there’s less incentive to leave at that time of year. So that’s my dilemma.
In my last three years of flying I flew mostly up and down the West coast. The route from San Francisco to Seattle takes you just west of the Cascade Range. Back in those days most passengers appreciated having landmarks pointed out. Whenever the lake was visible, I would make an announcement.
It has always been fascinating to me that Crater Lake’s water level remains pretty constant. It receives differing amounts of precipitation, but evaporation and seepage seem to match that so that the water level remains constant. Quite remarkable.
In the Philippines there is a caldera lake within a caldera lake. Taal Lake is a caldera lake with a volcanic cone island called – appropriately, Volcano Island – that has its own caldera lake known as Yellow Lake or Main Crater Lake.
This was one of our favorite sightseeing flights from Cubi Point back in the day. For info and pictures go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taal_Lake
J.J.:
That’s such a beautiful route to fly in the daytime when the weather’s clear. I’ve done it several times and always try to sit on the side of the plane that has the volcanoes. It is an astounding thing to see them line up like that. You no sooner pass one than it seems you’re over another. I’ve seen Crater Lake that way a couple of times, quite an extraordinary sight.
neo…
Toba is widely considered to be true source of the human DNA bottleneck — the reason why all living humans have so little genetic diversity.
The DNA mutation-diversity ‘clock’ and the geological ‘clocks’ line up almost to the millennia.
IIRC, Toba is deemed the largest super-volcano on planet Earth.
Even bigger ones have been found on Venus and Mars.
Venus is the ultimate hyper-volcano. Every 100,000,000 or so years the entire surface of the planet erupts at the same time… that’s is it’s molten everywhere… just like the era of planetary birth.
The mechanism: radioactivity releases heat that can’t easily escape — as the surface pressure and temperature is fantastic.
Then it ‘flips’ and melts planet wide, finally bringing all that super-heat to the surface. It which point the atmosphere REALLY gets hot — and for centuries (?) ejects the heat to space.
All sci-fi thoughts of Venus ever being transformed into a second Earth have vanished.
A cousin of mine worked at Crater Lake one summer when she was in college. Like her mother, she has high cheekbones, which makes her look somewhat Indian, although it appears the only Indian ancestor we had was back in the 18th century. A tourist at Crater Lake asked my cousin if she had any Indian ancestry. My cousin replied that she was the great-granddaughter of Cochise. Not so, but it made a good story for the tourist.
Stunning places ! I recall hearing on the NatGeo channel that the entire Yellowstone Park, with all those hissing, snorting. Geysers & hot springs etc, is actually a giant caldera of the Yellowstone Super Volcano. Yikes spooky stuff, who wants to be around when that thing blows!
,
Strange coincidence: I was just there today! (Very foggy and could barely see the other side of the lake. Short glimpse of Wizard Island before the fog moved back in. No hiking as all the trails are still snow-covered.)
Neo:
I know what you mean about the hot summers. I used to live in Susanville (about an hour to the east of Lassen), and going to the Sacramento Valley in midsummer was an ordeal.
One spring (1998, I think), Lassen Park had a day where they allowed a limited number of visitors to come up and watch them do snow removal on the park road in the southern part of the park, where the Tehama caldera is. A friend and I took advantage of this. We were escorted up to the working face, where there was only (!) 27 feet of snow over the road. It had been an unusually heavy snow that year, and dense as well. They were estimating that there was over 60 feet of snow at the road summit, and there was so much snow on Lassen that the profile of the mountain was changed.
AMartel:
Too bad you weren’t there yesterday – it probably would have been pretty nice. It was 86 and clear here in Portland – today was cloudy and rainy as at Crater Lake.
The main point is it is stupendously beautiful.
Another unusual aspect I learned about Crater Lake, when I visited late in the 20th Century: As you mentioned it has no streams running into it. It also has no streams running out. Yet the surface elevation varies little throughout the year and from year to year. Somehow evaporation and percolation balance with rain, snow and spring snow melt to maintain that elevation. How can that be? I found no scientific explanation. Here is what I suspect: The soil in that area is volcanic and quite porous. I suspect that water readily percolates near the surface level, but that deeper down the earth lining of the lake is not porous so it’s enormous volume is held.
BTW, you are right about the heat all around Lassen Peak in the summer. I have visited the park many times, but always on skis or snowshoes. There is often much snow around well into June. On July 5, 1983, which was a very big snow year, I climbed to the summit and then descended on skis. I also made several ski trips up the peak on Memorial Day weekends.
Molly:
Being down wind in the ash plume from Yellowstone will be pretty bad. Midwest and eastern US and Canada will not a good place to be. Volcanic ash is pretty nasty for automobile and truck engines, nor good to breathe, that’s what killed most of the victims at Mt St Helens in 1980.
O M scary stuff. I read on the Daily Mail (a UK site) about some
Russian guy who proposes taking out the USA by somehow setting off this *super volcano*!!
Short sighted, would it not set off the nuclear winter, no crops growing & massive starvation. Disasters on such a scale impact everybody!
Alan F:
Sounds like fun.
As for the water level, apparently this is the explanation:
That link has a nice summary of information about Crater Lake and Mount Mazama.
Did you take the boat ride while you were there (well “rides” as there are – or were – several choices)? I hiked Wizard Island with a geology group one trip.
…I’ve been to Crater Lake many times over the decades (since I was a teen), camping, walking, hiking, sometimes going there just to drive around the caldera.
(Northern California and southern Oregon were my stomping grounds …I’m intimate with a lot of the region.)
Crater Lake visits almost always included a visit to the relatively nearby community of Ashland to take in a play (or two) …my aunt and uncle convinced me to go with them to the Shakespeare Festival when I was visiting them as a recalcitrant brat of 16 (15?) or so (they lived on the North Coast – in Eureka – at the time, and Ashland was only a 4 hour drive or so) …and that impromptu road trip began my love of the theater (and an introduction to the joys of Shakespeare).
The play that evening was one of the comedies – As You Like It – in the Elizabethan Theater (it was pretty much the only venue in Ashland back then), and it rained a bit at one point …and we sat mid-theater under the stars as the evening deepened …and I was hooked: my gawd, it was funny and magical. It changed me. I’ll never forget.
Lassen too. There’s a small campground (I think it only has 15 campsites or so) at the south gate (on the road that winds its way to the summit …and an awesome fast downhill cycling ride), and I “taught” my wife to love camping, hiking, camp coffee on cold mornings, and the joy of Tiny Tots (small brisling sardines in olive oil) on crackers during an arduous climb, from that base.
Good times.
…reading this thread has made me quite nostalgic.
It’s spelled MAZAMA. Mazuma is slang for money.
Sam L.:
Oops—thanks, will fix.
I got familiar with Lake Toba when I lived in Indonesia. It’s up in north Sumatra, south of Medan, and almost directly across the Straits of Malacca from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. It used to be a popular backpacker-type tourist destination in the 1970s and 1980s, before the party moved to Thailand. Lake Toba is in a predominantly Christian part of Indonesia (mostly Batak people live in the area), so consumption of alcohol or skimpy bathing suits have never been issues around there. It’s a pretty lake with hospitable people to welcome you to their hotels or restaurants, but the infrastructure has gotten somewhat run-down over the years. Still worth a visit, IMHO.