Untitled Document

El Paso area West
2009

We arrived at Kilbourne Hole about 6pm.

Kilbourne Hole is an old maar volcano about 40 miles west of El Paso. It is thought to be about 80,000 years old. It is over a mile wide and over 300 feet deep. That white dot at the top right of the picture is the truck. Those black columns are basalt and many of them (larger that 2 of us put together) were blown out of the crater, and now rest in the silt. In 1969, these craters helped train the Apollo astronauts. http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/ap-geotrips.pdf

This chunk of basalt is HUGE! Only the top or bottom end of the basalt column is seen. Notice the layers of silt and ash which must have been deposited before this gigantic rock was blasted out of the crater. That bush at the bottom is about 5 feet tall.

We picked up green olivine stones (some had small peridot chrystals), which are found only around 5 places on earth. There were lots of lava rocks all over the place. Some were heavy and others light, depending on how many holes/bubbles were in the rock. This rock was boiling when it came to the surface. Thats where the holes came from.

We stayed until we couldn't see anymore. This picture was taken with a flash and then lightened heavily.

To see the larger panorama of this stitched file choose one of the following: Panorama#1(40% of full size 489kb)
or
LargePanorama#2(original size 100% 2.05mb).
The web browsers make these panoramas look choppy. Right click and download them. Then open in your photo program of choice. I was using Microsoft Picture Manager.