Geo 1095: April 10, Day 830: Float Your Boat

A final shot, for now, of Clear Lake, this one was taken on the McKenzie hydrology trip with Anne, Chris, and Dana. It was on this trip that Anne showed us some of the wonders that water can pull off in this drainage. In terms of visible water, Clear Lake is where it all begins, but the real story starts across the many, many square miles of recent rubbly lava flows uphill from here. Rain and snowmelt sluices into the fractures, and over a period of years, trickles underground to emerge at this location. I'm particularly fond of this photo, because the boat and the reflection of its passengers are visually confusing. It looks as if the boat is actually floating a foot or so above the water's surface. Of course it isn't, but it's this sort of optical delusion that makes me eschew the dock.

Also, non sequitur sidenote, today is the 200th anniversary of the largest volcanic eruption in human-recorded history: Tambora blew up on today's date in 1815. Here's a post describing it and contemporary observations, from Dr. Skyskull. Here's another discussing Tambora specifically, and large volcanic eruptions generally, in terms of their climatic effects. Lots of new-to-me information in both of those recommended readings. Followup, 4:08 PM: Here's another great read on Tambora from Erik Klemetti, with lots of links for additional reading, on the sheer, mind boggling scale of this eruption. One spoiler: the eruption released energy roughly equivalent to 2.2 million times the amount released in the Hiroshima blast.

Photo unmodified. July 7, 2013. FlashEarth Location.