Geologic Processes Slow or Fast? Sampling of insects etc by entomologists on Surtsey. © c/o

Geologic Processes

Slow or Fast?

Sampling of insects etc by entomologists on Surtsey.© c/o www.vulkaner.no

Surtsey Island today

Boulders on Iceland's Surtsey Island may look old, but they are actually as young as the island itself, which was born after volcanic eruptions on November 14, 1963.

http://www.vulkaner.no/v/volcan/island/bwsurtsey/surt01.html

1963 Surtsy Island was born

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/megaflood/scablands.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/megaflood/scablands.html

Lake Missoula

http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Glaciers/description_msh_glaciers.html

From: USFS Volcano Review, Summer 2002, contribution by Charlie Anderson, Director of the International Glaciospeleological Survey

In the unique laboratory of Mount St. Helens, scientists that study glaciers and glacier caves are observing and documenting a newly formed glacier. Over the last 21 years, snow, ice and rock debris have accumulated behind the Lava Dome to an average depth of 100 meters (325 feet) thick. The snow has been stacking higher each year compressing the past years' snow into a dense crystalline ice body, as deep as 190 meters (600 feet). Giant cracks in the ice, called crevasses, and other flow features, indicate that the ice body is transforming into a glacier. Scientists, known as Glaciospeleologists, have been studying the movement and growth of the glacier as it creeps around both sides of the Lava Dome, flowing north.

The total length of the range is about 600 km (370 mi), with some of the peaks rising as high as 5 km (3.1 mi).

Cretaceous/Tertiary 65 Ma

Ron Blakey,Colorado Plateau Geosystems, Inc.

1

1

1

2

2

5.1

2

3

3

4.1

4.2

5.1

5.2

5.2

5.3

9.1

9.2

10.1

10.2

12.1

13.5

13.6

13.113.4

13.2

13.3

14.7

14.1

14.2

14.4

14.3

14.6

14.5

14.5

16.216.1

16.3

16.417.1

17.2

17.3

18.118.3

18.4

18.2

19.2

19.1

20.2

20.2

20.1.

23.123.2

23.3

23.4

24..124.2

24.4

24.325.2

25.1

25.3

26.1

26.2

26.3

20.2

29.2

29.3

29.1

30.1

30.2

32.2

32.2

32.1

33.2

33.1

34.734.6

34.234.3

34.5

34.4

34.1

34.1

35.7

35.6