I finally made it to the Long Valley (LV) Caldera. I had followed earthquakes there for too long and want to see what I am following. When my Father was in Fresno, CA and took a turn for the worse, I flew into Fresno from Salt Lake City, UT and the Mono Lake caldera was really noticeable from the air. Collapsed caldera's have a tendency to produce interesting areas. The central plateau of Yellowstone National Park is a good example. A long time ago, I bumped into a USGS Scientist at Windy Ridge (East of Mt. St. Helens) and asked what was going on in Long Valley. At the time, it was still very active and they didn't know if it was going to erupt such as Mt. St. Helens did. He indicated there was still a significant internal concern. They had yielded to political pressure and reduced the warning level from RED. Since then the volcano has calmed down but it had continued to be a goal to see the area. Besides, traveling from Mono Lake to Fresno through Yosemite Park is such a terrible drive :-). Some of the granite shines like snow in the evening sun. The last time I was there, there wasn't any haze in the air and I was a typical tourist driving around with my mouth open at the beauty of the area. The latest development is the wild fire eating at Yosemite. The smoke affects my ability to take photographs, which is one of the points of the trip. The haze and smoke was a real problem this year. The wild fire had been put out. The valley smog was especially bad and this lifted into Yosemite Valley. There were a couple of fires to the west plus some planned burns inside of Yosemite. I felt sorry for the first time tourists that were not seeing the valley in all of its glory.
What you could see in Long Valley was also a problem. I drove past the road to the airport and the hot springs. That area was also just about as interesting to drive by as it is to drive over the Hanford Highway to the Vantage bridge. With the exception of Mammoth Mountain to the Northwest there wasn't anything interesting in the area. The resurgent dome, while large, could be just about anything unless you have a knowledge of the past history. Mammoth Mountain and the ski area was interesting. They were finishing up adding a large gondola ski lift. By the time the ski season is running at capacity they will have a new lift to transport many people to the top of the ski runs. The Devil's Post Pile (DPP), which you have to drive through Mammoth to get to, was interesting. Once you have seen columnar basalt you know what it looks like and expect formations of it to all look the same. The DPP cooled into columns but they look like there were going through a funnel. This is not your common form like we ha ve around here when you drive through the Grande Rhonde flood basalt formation. The Tri Cities where I live is pretty much in the center of the Grande Ronde formation.. The flood basalt in this area is on the order of 1000's of feet thick. There are layers of Grande Ronde basalt separated by deposits of Mt. Mazama (the volcano that blew up forming Crater Lake) ash. As the flood basalt cooled it typically formed columnar lava formations.
I drove down to a view point of Crowley Lake, which is the southern edge of the Long Valley Caldera, and took the obligatory photographs. I continued on down to Tom's Place, which is situated mostly east of the currently active area, and went back to Fresno. Back in Fresno I slept through the 7.1 magnitude earthquake at Joshua Tree NP. This was kind of mind boggling. I drive 1000 miles to see a place where earthquakes are happening and then sleep through a major one. The bed I was using in my brother s house either let me sleep through it or it wasn't felt that much in the Fresno area. Fresno is 325 miles from Joshua Tree NP. My brother has a kitchen sink with ceramic tile around it and a stress fracture in one of the tiles was suddenly much larger. I assume the bed sufficiently isolated me from the motion that I just slept through it. It is also possible that if I had been awake, I wouldn't have heard anything. The only time I was in an earthquake I could hear it but couldn't feel it. There were a few of us in Manhattan Beach, California. My ex-wife's youngest sister lived there and a 1.7 magnitude earthquake made the hide-a-bed squeak. So, I have heard one but never felt one but have followed the development of earthquake science and its association with volcano's for many years.
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