volcanoes melt you down

the nearby pinacate volcanic biosphere reserve is truly spectacular. one the drive down here from lukeville, you pass right by it, but if my dad hadn't mentioned it, i wouldn't have even noticed. we do offer tours out there, and i got to tag along on a tour with rick my first month here (yes, it's taken me that long to get around to writing about this).

the biosphere has 770 miles of volcanic features - including the giant pinacate shield volcano, a number of huge craters, lava flows, tubes, and cinder cones. it's really cool.



[view over the lava flow]


we passed volcanic rock mines, where people come and dig up the rock to form cinder blocks. it made me laugh - my papa's house in new mexico has a front yard of this stuff. what fabulous rock; it makes a great noise when you walk on it. technically this doesn't happen anymore, it being a biosphere reserve and all. this part of the area gets a bit more rain than the desert closer to peñasco and it's really obvious how much more lush it is.





but the most impressive is in the drive up to el crater elegante, the largest maar crater in north america. you park close to the top, and rick had us all line up and walk to the rim with our eyes closed. and what a sight it is:



[el elegante: what an appropriate name]




[looking over the edge]


it's a mile across and 800 feet deep. just ... wow.

and we also visited cerro colorado, another huge crater, so named because of the reddish soil. very cool to look at.





i seem to be visiting a lot of craters and volcanic features lately. learning a lot about volcanoes and plate tectonics (since i have to explain at least twice a week to the public about this). plus i'm doing my first tour here next week! i'm also reading a book about earthquakes and geology and what not (excellent book by the way - a crack in the edge of the world by simon winchester). maybe the theme of march is rocks and geology. wouldn't my dad be proud?