page_title: Lassen Volcanic National Park
section_title: Volcanoes rise
hierarchical_section_title: Lassen Volcanic National Park / Geology / Volcanoes rise
caption_attribution_description: Panorama of Bumpass Hell hydrothermal features of Lassen Volcanic National Park, USA
context_page_description: Lassen Volcanic National Park is an American national park in northeastern California. The dominant feature of the park is Lassen Peak, the largest plug dome volcano in the world and the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range. Lassen Volcanic National Park started as two separate national monuments designated by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907: Cinder Cone National Monument and Lassen Peak National Monument.
  The source of heat for the volcanism in the Lassen area is subduction of the Gorda Plate diving below the North American Plate off the Northern California coast. The area surrounding Lassen Peak is still active with boiling mud pots, fumaroles, and hot springs. Lassen Volcanic National Park is one of the few areas in the world where all four types of volcano can be found—plug dome, shield, cinder cone, and stratovolcano.
  The park is accessible via State Routes 89 and 44. SR 89 passes north-south through the park, beginning at
  SR 36 to the south and ending at SR 44 to the north. SR 89 passes immediately adjacent to the base of Lassen Peak.
context_section_description: Pyroclastic eruptions then started to pile tephra into cones in the northern area of the park.
  Mount Tehama (also known as Brokeoff Volcano) rose as a stratovolcano in the southwestern corner of the park during the Pleistocene. It was made of roughly alternating layers of andesitic lavas and tephra (volcanic ash, breccia, and pumice) with increasing amounts of tephra with elevation. At its height, Tehama was probably about 11,000 feet (3,400 m) high.
  Approximately 350,000 years ago its cone collapsed into itself and formed a two-mile (3.2 km) wide caldera after it emptied its throat and partially did the same to its magma chamber in a series of eruptions. One of these eruptions occurred where Lassen Peak now stands, and consisted of fluid, black, glassy dacite, which formed a layer 1,500 feet (460 m) thick (outcroppings of which can be seen as columnar rock at Lassen's base).
  During glacial periods (ice ages) of the present Wisconsinan glaciation, glaciers have modified and helped to erode the older volcanoes in the park, including the remains of Tehama. Many of these glacial features, deposits and scars, however, have been covered up by tephra and avalanches, or were destroyed by eruptions.
  Roughly 27,000 years ago (older data gave an age of 18,000 years), Lassen Peak started to form as a dacite lava dome quickly pushed its way through Tehama's destroyed north-eastern flank. As the lava dome pushed its way up, it shattered overlaying rock, which formed a blanket of talus around the emerging volcano. Lassen rose and reached its present height in a relatively short time, probably in as little as a few years. Lassen Peak has also been partially eroded by Ice Age glaciers, at least one of which extended as much as 7 miles (11 km) from the volcano itself.
  Since then, smaller dacite domes formed around Lassen. The largest of these, Chaos Crags, is just north of Lassen Peak. Phreatic (steam explosion) eruptions, dacite and andesite lava flows and cinder cone formation have persisted into modern times.
  There are active hot springs and mud pots in the Lassen area. Some of these springs are the site of occurrence of certain extremophile micro-organisms, that are capable of surviving in extremely hot environments.
caption: Bumpass Hell contains boiling springs, mudpots, and fumaroles
exif: {}