Crater Lake's Big Geologic Secret: Insights from Cleetwood Cove 

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The size of that crater lake is immense, just judging from the video. To think that people were anywhere close to Mt. Mazama when that volcano went off and collapsed into its magma chamber is... overwhelming.They most probably had a really bad day.

I've been to Crater Lake, but I've never heard that story. It was very interesting and informative. Thanks!

A few years ago I took the Crater Lake Trolley that had a Park Ranger onboard. He shared the information about the creation of Crater Lake and subsequent natural formations, and recovery of the natural landscape. Well worth the two hour tour. Didn't have to drive and learned much about this National Park. Shawn provides a lot of interesting facts about the lake.

A cataclysmic event of an inimaginable scale. Fascinating story!

We were there back in 2010 in late June but never saw any ground. There was 20 ft. of ice and snow covering the ground and the road around the lake was closed. Only the area around the lodge was cleared. Still awe inspiring. Cool video, thanks much!

Super Gnarly. Thank you Prof. Willsey!

What a great geology lesson! Thanks Shawn. Such a beautiful, interesting place! The only thing missing is one of those famous Professor Willsey diagrams, lol.

Such a beautiful place, brings back so many memories. That is super interesting! I'd have puzzled forever about those lava rocks going into the crater. I'd never have guessed that. As a young man I worked consruction. We did the asphalt overlay of the rim village parking lot, etc. It took a couple weeks and were the best days working I've ever had. That was 1978. I was a shovel operator... as in the wooden handle kind. Very hard labor, but still the best.

Looks like a nice road to drive recklessly on. One of the things that surprises me with this video and a good many others is how relatively recent events such as this are.

To get a clear view of Crater Lake (and anywhere in the West for that matter, other than the coast,) visit the park before fire season starts in late June. Summers are extremely dry in the West; even Western Oregon, perceived as wet, green and lush doesn’t get any measurable rain in July and August, and September is hit and miss limited thunder storms that don’t last. Any system that does move through, just raises the humidity some and starts fires with dry-lightning.

A really fascinating story! Looks a fantastic place to.

Thanks for sharing. Crater Lake is one of my favorite places.

20 bucks a car for the shortcut thru the park pays for itself. (Without even going for the gold.....) Looking into the bowl and at Mt Shasta from whats left of the super strato volcano that is Mt Thielsen and north to The Sisters puts the volcanic arc activity into perspective. There is more lumberable wood buried from eruptions and preserved, than there is growing on the top, like exposed over at Lemolo Lake or petrified down the canal road to Toketee.

Thank You Shawn & Hello from Albany....your presentation was so well packed with amazing information that I'm watching it again immediately after I post this comment with the new knowledge and now enhanced perceptions that you provided about Crater Lake, a place I've enjoyed many times since childhood through the decades that IMO is one of the top natural wonders of the world. When I try to describe to younger people what actual clear sky's used to look like and how they would get so dark blue that they looked almost purple, I tell them like the water in Crater Lake, that deep, dark, untaintated pure blue like no other lake on earth. The sky's no longer get clear, ever, not any more, not this century😢 Crater Lake is miraculous, especially on a partly cloudy day because there aren't many places where you can clearly watch a whole large cloud and it's shadow cross an entire massive lake with a birds eye view that allows you to visibly see the color variations caused by sunlight as it is filtered by the clouds as they pass through surrounded by the full sun exposure portions of the most incredible lake water on earth......and if you're lucky there will be some spectacular pollen patches floating on the top of the water somewhere. Thanks again, glad I found you, subscribed, I am an avid rockhound for nearly all of my 54 yrs and also have a younger brother with the same birthday who is a Geologist that graduated from UCSC. It's bed time....will explore your channel tomorrow.🥰

An awe inspiring place that I HAVE to get back to. Thanks for all that you do Shawn.

Fours years ago the National Park Service did an interesting video on the collapse of Mount Mazama using animation. It's an excerpt from the film Crater Lake: Into the Deep. Well worth the watch! It does help in understanding why the different types of rock laying around here exists today in addition to what the professor showed us here.

Man seeing the area with you walking around really shows the grand scope of it all. I suspected that was what it was when showing it, ive seen in in Arizona HUGE old lava flows that highways cut straight through and had discoloration like that.

The energy that would have been involved is somewhat mild boggling.

Man you make me look at the ground differently than I used to. When I’m driving and see rocks or cliffs around the Cumberland Plateau now I wonder what happened and how did they form?

Another fascinating and educational explainer video. I always learn so much from you. I think you are an exceptional geological science communicator. Thank you so much for doing these, Prof. Willsey! P.S. I would send more but I'm disabled and live on a fixed income. I pretty much live vicariously through you.

Thanks for sharing this time-travel exciting story so clearly and avidly (we expect no less). Terrific wildly cold swimming in Crater Lake, every imaginable hue of blue seen below in waves of vividness-

I was at Crater Lake several years ago and never looked at what was on the rim. The lake itself is so hard to ignore, as you mentioned. However, when I do go back, I will definitely be a lot more informed and look a more than just the lake😉😁

These on-site seminars are the best. I swam in Crater Lake at Cleetwood Cove, which was the only place where people were allowed to visit the shoreline of this magnificent lake. So interesting and informative to learn these details of its formation.

A new way to look at the park. Thank you.

Crater Lake is an astonishing story. There are many calderas in the Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming region. The fascinating thing is their diversity. Crater Lake caldera is so young, so deep, with a large lake in it. Others are much older, much larger (formed from supervolcanic eruptions), often nearly completely filled in, most with no standing water in them any more. Some nearby calderas make Crater Lake caldera look pitifully small in comparison. Some have yet to be recognized officially. Why all of this intense dramatic action in this particular region?............Possibly because of the juncture of the Cascades, and the Basin and Range, and Columbia Plateau volcanics. Stretching and thinning of the crust. Weak areas in the thinned crust. Keep going north and you will be amazed by the Crooked River caldera formed from a supervolcanic eruption. It is huge. I have friends that are moving to Pagosa Springs, Colorado.........that area is nearly the center of the La Garita supervolcanic eruption. It think it was the largest of all of the supervolcanic eruptions known.

Just think of the things you could tell people if you were indestructible and could walk through the cataclysm as it was happening, experiencing every second of it first hand. The power of such things cannot truly be known or experienced. All we can do is survey the aftermath and form conclusions based on the evidence left laying around. Super interesting to say the least. Thank you Professor Wilsey for this explanation of the evidence.

Thank you. Very interesting.

One of my favorite places. I tried to feed a squirrel when I was a kid and got a ten minute lecture from a park ranger 😂

You are a good teacher man. Thank you very much for taking me along.

Amazing story - though I'm glad I was not there to see it that day 7,700 bp...

I assume it was a stratovolcano generated by the Farallon subduction? That is an amazing story, and you explained it very well Professor - Thank you!

Great video explaining the timeline of Vulcanic deposits! Thank You

This is an amazing explanation of cause and effect. Thank you!

I was fortunate to see Crater Lake when I was 7 years old. I became fascinated with geology. my daughter has a PhD in Geomorphology.

Really enjoyed this one, particularly what happens when pumice falls on top of a still warm lava flow. Cool!

Neat story, thanks for posting!

Thanks for sharing this story ! When we visited Crater Lake one thing that impressed me was the almost 5 square miles Pumice Desert that is up to 200 feet deep filling a valley near the mountain. I remember the pieces of pumice were several different colors because I pocketed a few small pieces. Trees and plants are having a difficult time colonizing the area because water just drains away, soil particles can’t build up and thus no plants.

I visited here for a short time at the rim next to the visitor center in September 1990. I enjoyed your talk, sir, of that magnificent caldera, right here in the Cascades.

I love that spot. Thanks for the information. So interesting.

One of my favorite places in Oregon!

Wow great dramatic capture of the collapse and its aftermath, whilst still erupting.

Excellent video and explanation of the eruptive events! Thank you!

I had watched weeks of drone videos of Icelandic volcanoes, so it was easy to follow your clear (and interesting) recreation of an older, isolated series of quick events. Loved it! Thank you!

You have to see this lake in person to appreciate the color. I've never seen blue like that.

Can't but think about the impact , and its geographical scope , on the native population of that time. Is there any oral history of it extant ? Awesome feature that speaks loudly of the enormity and power of this event. Keep up the your fascinating scrambling Shawn. Glad you are young and active and able to take older and distant people on these field trips.

Thanks for this Prof! When I was there in July, I was wondering why the lava layers were at such strange and extreme angles.

Such a beautiful place

Nice video. I love science especially Earth science. To be able to self-study by watching a short video like this from an expert, is really nice for me. Thank you!

was there any giants ? I seen a face in one of the rocks you passed by. I thank you for showing your trip very nice. I wish I could walk along with you but that will not happen for me for I,am crippled up. You are a wonderful help! Made me fill alive again! Much blessings sir

A powerful eruption panhandle of Idaho has a layer of reddish colored ash that is very consistent 16 to 18 inches thick.however i been told that it happened 10 thousand years ago and the ice sheet was here 10 thousand years ago.the ice sheet was gone there is no way all the ash fell on top of the ice sheet and was deposited and is now consistent 16 to 18 inches thick.really makes the timber grow fast.

Such an interesting and complicated story. Gorgeous rocks!!

Thank you Professor Willsey!

The first time I visited Crater Lake as a young lad was 1949 when it had frozen over. Hasn't happened since.

excellent observation and explanation. Thanks

Thankyou for the view.

Great explanation!!!

Fascinating!

Great video, we just visited crater lake a month ago.

So a question for Shawn or anyone else who would know. From about where the road is, that being the edge of the caldera, how much higher was the volcano b-4 it blew it's top?

Good stuff, thanks.

Beautiful location and the lake looks very large, it must have been an enormous eruption.

love your Trips

Shawn, thanks for the tale. I think I followed the story. I'm curious about the rhyodacite you first mention at about 3:33. The outcrop looks very blobby and globular like a pillow basalt. Is that something unique about that lava flow or is it just a trick of the weathering and lighting? The other outcrop of that rock type that you mention has flow structures and layering and looks quite different.

That's fascinating, I really appreciate it!

very cool!

Great video!!

😍😍😍😍😍AWESOME, Thank You !!!

Thanks Shawn!! Love your FB vids!!! Come back to Montana some time.

A little boy, Samuel Boehlke when missing from that area in October, 2006. He was only eight. It was almost that exact area.

Thanks!

Thanks for the great geology videos. $10 heading your way. Okay, so at 10:05, the lava flow heading downslope toward the lake was originally flowing down the flanks of Mt. Mazama prior to its core collapse? If that's correct, that is amazing. The fact that that edge is still intact in present time is equally amazing. What a story. Crater Lake is now on my bucket list.

The geologic story continues to unfold as roadcuts are made.

I now look forward to every one of your videos. And donations will help you make more.. Thanks!

I told myself "Self, heat changed the color of the pumice" How would I know this? I view the content provided by Shawn Willsey geology professor at the College of Southern Idaho that's how.

Neat! Subscribed

I was looking at my piece of oxidized pumice from that exact location while watching along.

Like peeling back layers of an onion.

I appreciate this video as it tells a good story! Can you comment on an alternate explanation I was thinking about as you laid out the story? Up north on east side of MSH, there is an orange stained hillside that stands out from surrounding gray rock. The explanation for that site is a dacite dome altered by fumarolic events. In other words, hot acidic gases from a dome or vent. that altered the rock and overburden, staining it orange. Or perhaps they are related processes? Anyway- keep up the good work.

thanks for this great story! however, the information looks more clear when combined with diagrams)

Wow, if i was 24 and not 74, and in college again, I'd take your classes..

Shawn, has there been any studies that have revealed how long the actual collapse took? Was it minutes, hours, days? I am assuming that the summit of Mount Mazama was already gone before the collapse because of the depth of the lake/caldera.

How deep is the lake ? ,,,,, how big was the mountain( volcano) before???😮......tnx, pat&family... land o' lakes,wi....holy cats,that beautiful there,.

Planet Earth is simply amazing....we should take better care of it while we're still here.

Has anyone ever mapped the floor of Crater Lake?

is rock collecting permitted along Rim Road and elsewhere ?

I live about an hour away from Crater Lake. It is absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend a visit to the park. Thanks for the information on the geological aspects of the place. I would also recommend visiting Bend Oregon. So much volcanism everywhere. And lake Paulina is another caldera lake that has the most amazing trout due to the hydrothermal vents that supercharge the food chain.

How long a process caldera forming is? Hours or days or weeks?

When you first walked up to the edge….yikes! That’s a long way down!

How long did the collapse take? Minutes? Hours? Weeks? Decades?

I lava your video

That had to been a huge explosion

Lol "ill try to restrain myself"

Amazing how it didn’t destroy the road 😂

Been there years ago and end of May couldn’t make the tour around. Still mountains of snow on the side opposing the tourist center and the wonderful hotel

I saw and comprehend, the Obsidian Island mounds, 500 ft off the nort coast of Oregon, at ‘Oceanside’ , as an end point to 1000+years, where glaciers , floods, magma flow and eruptions, a place where family live, and ties the revelation , for me. So much , out of our awareness, that any moment we can envision and incorporate as a physical change, has minor changes during the 1000 yrs, we are chatting about. I resist the ‘overnight theory, then the next day..’ theory, and it matters not if it happened in 3 stages , 300 yrs apart.👀 Witness the quickness,👈🏽 and adjust your expectation.🙉

#1, I want to pull you back from the edge. 😬 #2, Are you saying both those types of pumice are the same material, just one was heated and the other not?

Did anybody else happen to see the ghost face in the mountain off to the right @ 5:42-5:45!?

Walking way too close to the edge for my comfort. 😬

"Geologists have better Contact Zones"