Kathy Cashman
University of Oregon
Zoom recording not available
5:30 pm social hour
7:00 pm presentation
Magnitude 7+ eruptions occur globally at a rate of 1-2 per 1000 years and are large enough to cause devastating global impacts. Yet we know little about either the conditions that lead to very large eruptions or the long-term impacts of such events. This presentation will address these questions using data from the c.7700 ybp eruption of Mount Mazama that produced Crater Lake, Oregon, which had a magnitude M=7.1 and deposited ash over >1 million square kilometers of northwestern North America.
The pre-climactic and climactic eruptive sequences of this event have been interpreted to comprise a Plinian eruption followed by effusion of a large obsidian flow at the Cleetwood vent, followed weeks to a few months later by the climactic eruption (comprising lower and upper pumice units followed by widespread pyroclastic flows). New data from the lower pumice unit, however, suggests that the "climactic" sequence involved at least three eruptions, two of which were, like the Cleetwood, precursory to the climactic phase, and at least one of which tapped a distinct, although related, magma reservoir. In this way, the eruptive sequence resembled the four-month buildup to the 1883 eruption of Krakatau, Indonesia, and lends support to the idea that evacuation of large magma volumes may often require either pre- or syn-eruptive amalgamation of multiple melt lenses within a larger magmatic system. New data on the distal ash deposit provides new constraints on the eruptive volume, conditions of ash transport and deposition, and types of post-eruption redistribution of the widespread ash that supports archeological interpretations of disruption to Native American communities throughout the region, probably for centuries.
Please join us at Bridge 99 Brewery:
63063 Layton Avenue, Bend
COGS talk are free and open to the public -- all are welcome! Please join us for the social hour before the presentation. All presentations are also live-streamed through Zoom. There will be a registration link at the top of this page as we get closer to the date of this presentation.
Central Oregon Geoscience Society
Email: COGeoSoc@gmail.com P.O. Box 2154, Bend, Oregon 97709