Drunk on Volcanology - Yellowstone Cabernet Sauvignon

The next Drunk on Geology is for the Yellowstone National Park Lodges Xanterra Travel Collection Cabernet Sauvignon from Rutherford Wine Company out of St. Helena, CA.

This wine has a two-fold geological feature about it. One: It is a wine made exclusively for Yellowstone National Park, and therefore is essentially a "Yellowstone Wine". And Two, there is that picture of a waterfall on the bottle. That waterfall is the Lower Falls along the Yellowstone River, which is coincidently the largest waterfalls within Yellowstone National Park. First up, we'll discuss the geology of Yellowstone National Park itself. For a more in-depth look at the geology of Yellowstone, please check out my Geology of the National Parks Through Pictures post on Yellowstone NP.  

Yellowstone's magma plume below the surface of the Earth. Image courtesy of National Geographic.

While it does not look like a "typical" volcano, Yellowstone is one of the largest volcanoes on the planet, however most of that volcanic mass is "hidden" below ground. Yellowstone is what is known as a "hotspot" volcano. This means that magma rises from the mantle towards the surface from one location.  

Movement of the North American plate across the Yellowstone Hotspot. Image courtesy of NPS.gov.

This hotspot is essentially fixed in place, however the plates on the surface of the Earth continue to move across it. The movement of the plate across the hotspot creates a string of volcanoes, where the volcano furthest away on the string is the oldest. It also means most of the volcanoes along the string are likely non-active, with only the ones currently over the hotspot having any form of volcanic activity. Another well known hotspot volcano is Hawaii, where you can easily see the string of volcanoes over time with the current hot spot being located under the Big Island. In the image above you can see the string of former locations where the North American plate used to reside over the Yellowstone Hotspot as the plate moved towards the southwest over the last 16 million years.

Image on the wine bottle of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone

Pictured on the bottle is an artistic rendering of the Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. This is the upper limit, and the start, of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone was formed by the intermingling of a few factors. One of the factors is that all of the very hot magma beneath the park lifted up the entire region. This force that pushed the land upwards is very similar to that seen at the Grand Canyon, where, as the ground moved upwards, the river within the landscape eroded downwards at a pace faster than would normally be seen. This type of quickened erosion can also be seen here, as the Yellowstone River eroded downwards within the land surface being pushed upwards. However, the rate of erosion is also fairly high, even for this phenomena, and that is because within this portion of the park, the Yellowstone River follows a fracture zone of the Yellowstone Caldera. Here hot water and steam rise up from deeper within the Yellowstone system as it alters the overlying rocks. 

Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River. Image courtesy of the NPS.

These overlying volcanic rocks, the Canyon Flow and Sulphur Creek Tuff, are what form the cap stone and canyon walls of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Waterfalls form when a hard rock, a capstone, overlies a softer rock. The softer rock erodes easily away and over time the soft rock undercuts the hard rock. The hard rock eventually becomes so undercut that the hard rock breaks off, resulting in the waterfall slowly moving upstream. 

Diagram of a waterfall. Image courtesy of ALevelGeography.

Initially during an eruption 480,000 years ago the Yellowstone volcano erupted, spewing ash into the area. This as fell in thick deposits and eventually welded itself into a thick rock known as a tuff. This welded volcanic ash tuff is known as the Sulphur Creek Tuff. Over time, the Sulphur Creek Tuff had been weakened by the hydrothermal alterations previously mentioned. These hydrothermal alterations caused the Sulphur Creek Tuff to become softer and more easily eroded, forming the "soft rock" layer. This alteration by the hydrothermal fluids is also what gives the canyon walls that distinctive red, yellow, and orangey color. 

Following the eruption of the ash that formed the tuff layer was the eruption of a lava flow. This lava flow, known as the Canyon Flow, forms what is known as the "hard rock" layer, or capstone, of the waterfall. The Canyon Flow is a rhyolitic lava flow, meaning that it has a very high silica, AKA quartz, composition. The high silica composition means that the lava flow was extremely viscous, unlike the lava flows that one would see from the Hawaiian volcano which produces a low silica lava, and therefore a low viscosity lava. 

Text on the back of the bottle:

Yellowstone National Park Lodges has partnered with Rutherford Wine Company because of their commitment to sustainability. Sustainability helps to ensure long-term health of the entire ecological system by promoting and maintaining the biodiversity of plants and animals and conservation of natural resources.

References
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/yellowstone-magma-plume/
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/volcano.htm
https://www.thegeologypage.com/2013/08/geology-of-national-parks-in-pictures.html

https://www.nps.gov/thingstodo/yell-grand-canyon-of-the-yellowstone.htm

https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/grand-canyon.htm

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Prodesc/proddesc_10730.htm

https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/altered-rhyolite-lava-flows-grand-canyon-yellowstone-ynp

https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/yvo/news/underloved-tuffs-yellowstone

https://www.alevelgeography.com/waterfalls/

Drunk on Volcanology - Old Faithful Ale

The next Drunk on Geology is for the Old Faithful Ale from Grand Teton Brewing out of Victor, ID. 

To fully describe the geology of Old Faithful, and why it falls into the "Drunk on Volcanology" group, there is a bit of background geology that is needed. Old Faithful is located towards the center of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone itself is the volcano of which Old Faithful not only sits on, but is powered by. While I am going to give a summary overview of the geology of Yellowstone here, you can find I had done a much more in-depth look at the Geology of Yellowstone National Park here.   

Yellowstone's magma plume below the surface of the Earth. Image courtesy of National Geographic.

As you can see in the image above, Yellowstone National Park is a volcano with a rather large magma chamber located below it. This magma chamber also extends significantly across the surrounding areas as well. The Yellowstone volcano is a type of volcano known as a hotspot. A hotspot is a volcano that starts off as a plume of magma that emanates from deep within the Earth, in the mantle. This plume of magma then rises through the crust and heats up the rocks on the surface. What makes a hotspot truly unique is that the plume of magma is fairly stationary as the crustal plates then move over it, creating a string of volcanoes. The Hawaiian Islands are a good example of this hotspot string of volcanoes. 

Movement of the North American plate across the Yellowstone Hotspot. Image courtesy of NPS.gov.

You can see this movement of the Yellowstone Hotspot by a trail of eruptions that move across the northwestern United States in the map above, specifically creating the topographic feature known as the Snake River Plain. And if you didn't already figure it out, the currently location of the Yellowstone Hotspot, is ... Yellowstone National Park. 

Within Yellowstone National Park there are many geological features that are tied to the Yellowstone Hotspot volcano. We are going to focus on Old Faithful here. Named in 1870, Old Faithful is what is known as a geyser. By definition, a geyser is:

A type of hot spring that intermittently erupts jets of hot water and steam, the result of ground water coming into contact with rock hot enough to create steam under conditions preventing circulation. 

Dictionary of Geological Terms 3rd Ed.   

Old Faithful erupting. View is facing south towards the Old Faithful Lodge.  

Below the surface of a geyser there are a series of cracks and fractures in the ground. These are typically referred to as the "plumbing" of the geyser. Geysers work when rain and snow percolate into the ground, creating ground water. This groundwater is heated up by the presence of a heat source, the Yellowstone magma chamber in this instance. This heated water then rises through these cracks and fissures in the ground. As the hydrothermal waters heat up and rise, they slowly dissolves the surrounding silica within the rhyolite rocks. 

Plumbing beneath Old Faithful. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Magazine.

For Old Faithful, the majority of the cracks and fractures that make up its plumbing lie within glacial sands and gravels, not within historic lava flows that cover much of the surrounding country side. The dissolved silica within the super heated waters starts to precipitate out of the hydrothermal fluids, stabilizing, and slowly constricting the cracks and fissures that make up the network. As the water is heated up, it also expands. However, since the cracks keep the heated water contained, the water is not allowed to expand, resulting in water that has become "super heated" (a phenomenon where water can surpass the boiling point but remain as water and not turn into steam). 

Eruption of Old Faithful. View is facing north, away from the Old Faithful Lodge.

As the water moves upwards through the plumbing network, eventually the water reaches near the surface where there is no more overriding pressure from the surrounding rocks and the water is allowed to expand. Since it is super heated, the expansion immediately causes the water to turn to steam. It is this sudden expansion and steam production that produces the semi-regular geyser eruptions. The regularity of the eruptions is due to the complexity of the fracture network, the ground water inflow, and how many external vents there are. The more vents connected to a system the less regular the system is likely to be. Since Old Faithful's plumbing network is not connected to any other geysers, this isolation is likely what leads to the regularity of eruptions. 

Old Faithful eruption. View from the Visitor's Center.

Within the Old Faithful system, the cracks and fissure plumbing network expands over 650 feet and holds more than 79 million gallons of water leading to ~8,000 gallons of water released per eruption shooting over 100 feet in the air. Although known for the regularity of the eruptions, the interval between eruptions is actually fairly variable, with eruptions occurring every 60 to 110 minutes. This variability is due to several factors including earthquakes altering the geyser "plumbing", seasonality of water supply, and continuous changes to the cracks and fissures due to mineral precipitation and collapse. 

References
https://grandtetonbrewing.com/

https://www.thegeologypage.com/2013/08/geology-of-national-parks-in-pictures.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/seeing-beneath-old-faithful-180965230/
https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/volcano.htm
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/yellowstone-magma-plume/
https://www.yellowstonetreasures.com/2015/01/20/yellowstone-geyser-eruptions-how-do-they-work/

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/drought-stopped-yellowstones-old-faithful-800-years-ago-climate-change-could-end-it-permanently-180976050/

https://rock.geosociety.org/net/gsatoday/archive/23/6/article/i1052-5173-23-6-4.htm

Drunk on Volcanology - Lava Lake Wit

 

The next Drunk on Geology is for Lava Lake Wit from the Crazy Mountain Brewing Company, out of Denver, CO. 

To start off, a "lava lake" is just what it sounds like, a lake of lava, or to be more technical per the NPS:

A lava lake is a pool of molten lava that persists in a vent or crater of a volcano...

Of which the only lava lake in the United States is found on the Big Island of Hawaii in the caldera of Mount Kilauea.

View of the lava lake within Mount Kilauea's Halemaʻumaʻu Crater in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park

Lava lakes, at over 2300 degrees Fahrenheit, are not very common across the planet at all, for obvious reasons. There must be a specific set of circumstances to maintain that liquid lava and not to eventually cool down forming igneous rocks. The lakes are maintained by the stream of volcanic gasses including sulfur within the caldera of the volcano that prevents the lava from cooling enough to solidify. 

Although the lava lakes are essentially "permanent" they do frequently drain and refill depending on the plumbing going on beneath the surface of the volcano as earthquakes and other forces redistribute the magma paths. 

Mount Nyiragongo in Congo. image courtesy of National Geographic. 

There are currently eight known lava lakes on Earth. Besides Mount Kilauea in Hawai'i, there are lava lakes in Ethiopia (Erte Ale), Antarctica (Mount Erebus), Vanuatu (Mount Yasure and Ambrym) and Nicaragua (Mount Masaya), with the largest known lava lake located in Congo (Mount Nyiragongo) measuring 820 feet in diameter and up to 2000 feet deep.

Looking at the back of the can, it says:

Slow down and take in the scenery with Byamba, one of the brighter creatures on Crazy Mountain. She boils the water for brewing with a zest for life that is contagious. Her personality is lively, refreshing and a little complicated. So pause for a moment and join her for an afternoon amid the blooming chamomile on Lava Lake. 

The text on the can made me wonder if that indeed we weren't only referring to a lava lake, as in a boiling lake of lava, but an actual place called Lava Lake. And it turns out that there is indeed a lake located kind of near Vail, CO called Lava Lake in White River National Forest. 

Lava Lake, CO

Which looks just like a cute little mountain lake on Lava Creek, although I'd prefer to take an afternoon next to an actual lava lake. 

References
https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/nature/lava-lakes.htm
https://weatherology.com/trending/articles/Professor-Paul-Lava-Lakes.html
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/article/nyiragongo-volcano-hike
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lava+Lake/@39.8191782,-106.5274406,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x876a0a71b6b10db1:0x907744c8a78ce2e7!8m2!3d39.8193024!4d-106.5247113!16s%2Fg%2F1hhhhyxxb?entry=ttu

Drunk on Volcanology - Crater Lake Oregon Chardonnay

 

The next Drunk on Geology is for Crater Lake Oregon Chardonnay by Eola Hills Wine Cellars in Rickreall, Oregon.

We had visited Crater Lake National Park over the summer of 2019 and we able to pick up this wine during dinner in the main lodge. Then afterwards I took some pictures out the back patio of the lodge overlooking the lake with Wizard Island in the background, matching the view on the bottle itself.

Crater Lake is a volcano located along the Cascade Range in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, which runs north into British Columbia in Canada. Crater Lake was originally a full blown volcano known as Mount Mazama, which was ~12,000 feet high before it erupted ~7,700 years ago. 

Some of the major volcanoes along the Pacific Northwest.  Image courtesy of the USGS. 

These volcanoes formed from the process known as subduction where one of the Earth's crustal plates descends slowly below another plate. As the denser plate descends, it begins to melt. The melted rock then rises up through the crust creating a line of volcanoes known as a volcanic arc. Crater Lake is one of the volcanoes located along the Cascadian volcanic arc.

Diagram illustrating the process of subduction. Image courtesy of the USGS.

Mount Mazama, like Mount Tehama to the south that eventually eroded into Lassen Peak, was a composite volcano. There are lots of different types of volcanoes. A composite volcano is a volcano that is composed of  alternating layers of ash, lava flows, rock fragments, and cinders that slowly piled up over time from smaller eruptions. The primary type of magma in this volcano was the thicker magma, termed felsic, that has a higher silica and gaseous content than volcanoes in places like Hawaii. Felsic magma and lava has a tendency to flow slowly and also to clog up volcanic vents. This periodic clogging allows the volcano to build up pressure, both from the thick lava and the high gas content within the volcano. It is like a soda bottle being shaken before the cap is released. Around 7,700 years ago the cap was released, producing an enormous eruption that released ash, gas, rocks, and lava into the air and surrounding regions. Eventually the magma chamber mostly emptied, leaving a gaping void below the mountain peak, which collapsed in on itself. This formed a bowl shaped depression known as a caldera. Later, smaller eruptions sealed the caldera floor, allowing for water to accumulate over time.

Crater Lake is one of the few volcanic calderas that are fully isolated from the surrounding water environment. Water only leaves the lake through evaporation, and a small amount of seepage, while it only enters the lake through snow and rainfall, keeping the lake at a nice balance. The lack of streams into the lake has also nearly eliminated the sediment within the lake, producing a crystal clear lake that reflects the deep blue of the sky. 

.

Text on the back of the bottle:

Located in South-Central Oregon, Crater Lake has inspired visitors for thousands of years.

Crate Lake is a place of immeasurable beauty and a reminder of the land's volcanic past. No place else on earth combines a deep, pure lake, so blue in color, with sheer surrounding cliffs reaching towards the sky. 

Seen on the bottle label, as well as in the background of the photos, is Wizard Island, which is easily the largest island in the lake. Wizard Island was formed during the subsequent eruptions shortly after the formation of the caldera. Wizard Island is a cinder cone. A cinder cone is another type of volcano that is produced when lava splutters out of a volcanic vent. As the lava is spit into the air is cools and forms a type of rock that is usually smaller in size and has a lot of air holes called scoria. During the course of the eruption these small chunks of rock pile up around the volcanic vent and eventually pile up to form a cone. The cinder cone Wizard Island is over 700 feet high from the surface of the water. 

Drunk on Volcanology - Lassen Peak Tres Rojas

 

The next Drunk on Geology is for Lassen Peak Tres Rojas by the Lassen Peak Winery.

We were able to pick up some of the Lassen Peak Winery bottles from the gift shop within the Lassen Peak National Park while we were there. I took these pictures from Butte Lake Campsite in the northeastern corner of the park. 

Lassen Peak is the remnant of a once much larger volcano, Mount Tehama, that erupted leaving behind a 2 mile wide caldera located between the surrounding mountains of Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Map of west coast subduction zone volcanoes. Image courtesy of the USGS.

Lassen Peak is the southernmost volcanoes in the Cascade Range, a series of volcanoes that stretch up into Canada along the Pacific Northwest coast.  These volcanoes formed from a process called subduction. The crust of the Earth is broken up into very large pieces called plates. These plates move around, with some sliding past each other, some pulling apart from each other, and others going towards each other. The edge of these plates are where earthquakes frequently occur, due to the rubbing of the plates against each other. 

Illustration of a subduction zone. Image courtesy of the USGS.

When a plate composed mostly of oceanic crust goes toward a plate composed mostly of continental crust, the denser oceanic crust gets forced downwards into the Earth. This area is known as a subduction zone. As the denser oceanic plate moves downwards into the Earth it starts to heat up and eventually melt. That liquid rock rises up through the crust forming a string of volcanoes called a volcanic arc. The Cascade Range is such an arc with Lassen Peak representing the southernmost extent of the subduction zone. 

There are many different types of volcanoes. Here is a view of Lassen Peak in the distance, rising up to 10,457 feet in elevation. It is so high that during our trip at the end of June it is still entirely covered in snow. Lassen Peak is what is known as a "Plug Dome", this forms when the lava is too thick to flow great distances. Lava rich in silica (quartz), has a higher viscosity (thickness) and doesn't flow as far as thinner, basaltic magma, which is hotter and has less silica content.

Lassen Peak can also be viewed on the front of the wine bottles. The original Mount Tehama was known as a "composite volcano", which means that it was composed of alternating layers of ash, lava flows, rock fragments, and cinders that slowly piled up over time from smaller eruptions. Most of the volcanoes in the Cascades are composite volcanoes. Mount Tehama was active with frequent eruptions from about 600,000 to 400,000 years ago until the magma shifted and the volcano, losing its magma, started to collapse and erode away.

Once we reached the highest part of the road way at Lassen Peak, the snow really was still piled up. Here is a view of the snowfields along Lassen Peak at ~8,500 ft.

Despite the larger Mount Tehama having eroded away, the area is still very much volcanically active. Within the central part of the caldera, towards the bottom of the valley between the mountains, is a large hydrothermal area. The hydrothermal area contains many features that are heated up from the rich source of magma that still resides below the surface. This particular area is known as the Sulphur Works, which does have that glorious rotten egg smell, but there are a few other hydrothermal areas within the park. Hydrothermal features also have a tendency to have very vivid colors from the heavy minerals that get brought to the surface by the groundwater from the magma.

Text from the back of the bottle:

"Tres Rojas is our finest Red wine, made from a Reserve blend of three Bordeaux varietals, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.

Our vineyards and winery are located in the mountains midway between Lassen National Park and Redding, CA, nestled in majestic pine forests. Our 2600' elevation, volcanic soils, steep terrain, and natural spring water provide ideal conditions for growing winegrapes. We use natural years fermentation in small French oak barrels to handcraft our rich and flavorful wines full of varietal character." 

Drunk on Volcanology - Scoria Chardonnay

 

The next Drunk on Geology post is for the Scoria Chardonnay from the Scoria Vineyards and Winery. 

The Scoria Vineyards and Winery are located in the same region as the previous Drunk on Geology post, Cinder Wines, the Snake River Plain, and both even have geologically related names. The words "cinder" and "scoria" are often used interchangeably within the geological nomenclature. 

Scoria is a volcanic rock that solidifies as basaltic lava is splattered out of a volcanic vent. Lava is categorized by its chemical composition, which also effects other aspects of it. Basaltic magma is a low silica (quartz) magma, meaning it tends to have a low viscosity (runny), is darker in color (black), it has a high iron and magnesium content (rusts), and it is also generally hotter when it erupts. 

Sample of scoria from Utah's Ice Spings Volcano. 

When you get a specific type of volcanic eruption where the basaltic lava splatters out, the lave then cools in the air with lots of air holes in it. This gives the lava rock a holey, lightweight appearance, like pumice, but black in color (as seen in the picture above). Over time these scoria rocks pile up around the vent eventually creating what is known as a cinder cone volcano. Cinder, again, referring to the scoria rocks.  

Text from the back of the bottle:

"Scoria's chardonnay takes on subtle tropical fruit flavors with expansive finishes of vanilla and French oak.

Our vines root deep into soil laced with dark volcanic scoria rock."

Pathway of the Yellowstone Hotspot across Idaho. Image courtesy of the Digital Geology of Idaho.

Generally, the Scoria Vineyards and Winery are located within the Snake River Plain. This is a region where the Yellowstone Hotspot once passed through. In actuality, the hotspot didn't move but the North American plate passed over the hotspot, creating this string of volcanic eruptions. While the plate passed over the hotspot, the hotspot melted most of this passage and afterwards, this region sank down from the cooling. It is a noticeable plain, devoid of mountains like the surrounding regions. Later, when the western US started to expand, which produced the Basin and Range region, this valley was susceptible to expansion, pulling the plate apart here. That expansion, which thinned the North American crust, combined with the low lying valley, allowed the hotter mantle to heat up this region melting the upper crustal rocks. This produced a score of volcanoes within the valley, including many parts of the western US down through Arizona. 

These volcanic eruptions, many of which were cinder cones, layered the Snake River Plain with scoria deposits. Later lake and river deposits made this valley an extremely fertile region with well drained soil, perfect for vineyards. Hence the reason so many wineries are located within the Snake River Plain.