The Volcano in Owens Valley California; The Big Pine Volcanic Field
Within Owens Valley in California there is a seemingly obvious volcano which is somewhat largely ignored. What I am referring to are a series of approximately 40 vents that are largely cinder cones which last produced a volcanic eruption a mere 17,000 years ago. As a result, it is quite likely that a portion of the Big Pine Volcanic Field will one day erupt again.
Thumbnail Photo Credit: This work “OwensValley1“, is a derivative of a photo (resized, cropped, text overlay, image saturation increased, brightness increased, more red added in to the photo via color balance, overlaid with text, overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the GeologyHub logo and the image border)) from “2012_01_02_owens-valley_149“, by: Doc Searls, docsearls, 2012, Posted on Flickr, Flickr account link: , Photo link: , CC BY 2.0. “OwensValley1“ is used & licensed under CC BY 2.0 by
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Sources/Citations:
[1] U.S. Geological Survey
[2] The Google Earth KMZ file used in this video used to show the Geologic Map of California was downloaded from: U.S. Geological Survey, California geologic map data, at
[3] Vazquez, J. A., and Woolford, J. M. (2015), Late Pleistocene ages for the most recent volcanism and glacial-pluvial deposits at Big Pine volcanic field, California, USA, from cosmogenic 36Cl dating, Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst., 16, 2812– 2828, doi:
[4] Adamo, Nasrat & Al-Ansari, Nadhir & Sissakian, Varoujan. (2021). Review of Climate Change Impacts on Human Environment: Past, Present and Future Projections. Engineering. 13. 605-630. , CC BY 4.0
[5] Varnell, Ashley. “Petrology and Geochemistry of the Big Pine Volcanic Field Inyo County, California.” (2006).
[6] YouTube Creative Commons, Video at 0:18-0:21 of Salton Sea mudpots: CC BY 3.0 license
0:00 Volcanoes in California
0:44 Big Pine Volcanic Field
1:50 Geologic Setting
3:17 Rhyolite Dome
3:28 Crater Mountain
4:06 Conclusion