Nature's Pressure Valves

One of the stunning highlights of the trip so far has been Crater Lake. It was touch and go whether we'd even be able to get to it or not, but luckily the weather, and the ranger's snowplough, were good to us. 

Crater Lake is a caldera in the Cascades, that was formed about 7,700 years ago when Mount Mazama erupted. The eruption was one of the largest in the last 10,000 years, releasing 50 billion m3 of magma through a series of vents around its perimeter, causing the top of the volcano to cave in and form the caldera. This basin is 8000 x 10,000m, and over 1000m deep, and over the years has filled with water from precipitation and snow melt. 

The lake is 589m deep, making it the deepest lake in the U.S., and because of the excellent conditions for preservation, the area is a natural laboratory for the study of volcanic and magmatic processes. This research has been of fundamental importance to volcanologists, helping them to understand large explosive eruptions, compositional zonation in magma chambers, and collapse caldera mechanisms - which is all a bit of structural engineering really. It's also just an incredible place! 

The key thing now is developing knowledge of volcanic activity, and improving monitoring. A team from Cambridge and Bristol universities has just run an experiment to test using drones to take measurements from inside ash clouds in Guatemala:

https://www.theengineer.co.uk/drone-versus-the-volcano-uk-team-feels-the-heat/ 

There's also a possibility that these incredible structures may be used for Geothermal power generation.... 

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.livescience.com/57833-scientists-drill-volcano-core-geothermal-energy.html 

Maybe there'll be an update by the time I get to the calderas in Yellowstone!