Posted on 10/09/2008 8:11:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Crooked Basin Caldera, a collapsed volcano, is 25 miles across
A fascinating new discovery by geologists is giving Prineville residents insight to what caused the unique landscape surrounding their city.
It appears that at one time, Central Oregon had a completely different landscape, which many geologists are saying could very well be the cause behind Prineville's water supply problems.
According to geologists, the area that encompasses the Lower Crooked Basin is the remains of a 29 million-year-old volcano.
The discovery of the Crooked Basin Caldera arose after two state geologists started to investigate why the groundwater in the basin has had so many problems over the years.
"There were lots of questions why there was arsenic in the water, why when you drilled a well here that it might come up dry, where if you went over to the Deschutes Basin and you tried to drill wells, you didn't have any trouble finding water," said James Roddey, Earth sciences information officer for the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.
State geologists Jason McLaughry and Mark Ferns started to map the area and observe the framework of the basin.
After realizing that the natural landscape formed a caldera, described as a once-giant volcano that's collapsed into itself, many of the local landmarks like Smith Rock, Powell Butte and layers of ash in the soil all made more sense.
"We can see it in the skyline here from Powell Butte, to Smith Rock, around to Grizzly Mountain that we're standing on," McLaughry said during a group visit to the area Wednesday,
The entire city of Prineville sits in the caldera," he said. "It's about 25 miles across, and about 25 miles wide."
With this realization, geologists started to wonder if the aftermath of the volcano might be affecting the state of water problems Prineville residents have struggled with for some time now, which lead them to their next discovery.
"Geologists realized that when this giant caldera collapsed, when this giant volcano collapsed, it compressed all the rocks," Roddey said. "And the water can't find the cracks in the rocks to pool in, like it does in the Deschutes Basin."
With these pieces of information from the ancient past, geologists are hopeful that they'll find new ways to bring clean water to the city, and better understand where and how to drill new wells.
Don’t blow up Les Schwab!
I drove around Oregon for a week on vacation. That state has everything when it comes to seeing things outdoors.
hehehe...cute that they think they were the first to realize this. :-)
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