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Lava, Lava Everywhere

WHOI students and scientists ascend the Inferno Cinder Cone during a field trip to a lava field in Craters of the Moon National Monument in central Idaho. The trip culminated the 2015 Geodynamics Program, a semester-long series of seminars by scientists that this year focused on hydrothermal systems. The group followed the track of the Snake River Plain-Yellowstone hotspot. As the continent moved over the hotspot, it formed the Snake River Plain in a succession of volcanic eruptions. The hotspot now lies under Yellowstone National Park, where geysers and hydrothermal features are still active.(Photo by Photo by Chawalit Charoepong, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)