a southern idaho highway punches through what was molten lava just 10,000 years ago, a blink of an eye in geologic time.<\/p>\n
\u201ci\u2019d seen it from the road. i\u2019d seen the lava flow across the road and i read about it in the literature at the wilderness study areas,\u201d said david freiberg of the u.s. bureau of land management. \u201cbut when i finally got the chance to come up here and visit i came up over the hill and i thought wow this is\u2026i described it as \u2018tolkienesque\u2019 because it\u2019s such an austere looking volcanic landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
this shield volcano called black butte rises just 200 feet above its surroundings on the snake river plain making it barely visible from the highway.<\/p>\n
\u201cvery few people actually visit this area and its one of the things that i\u2019ve been working on here at the blm is to try to raise people\u2019s knowledge and their understanding of the different natural resources we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
hiking through that hostile landscape offers a tour into the recent volcanic past. sheets of basaltic lava remain extremely well preserved. black butte is identical to the volcanoes still active in hawaii today. just 10,000 years ago a lava lake filled this crater complex.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
a southern idaho highway punches through what was molten lava just 10,000 years ago, a blink of an eye in geologic time. \u201ci\u2019d seen it from the road. i\u2019d seen the lava flow across the road and i read about it in the literature at the wilderness study areas,\u201d said david freiberg of the u.s….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4900,4899,4910],"tags":[1257,262,235,169,1258,1259,81,1260],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-14235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-living","category-policy","category-renewable-energy","tag-black-butte","tag-conservation","tag-environment","tag-green-living","tag-habitat","tag-oregon","tag-sustainability","tag-wilderness"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n