Wapi Lava Field

About Wapi Lava Field

The Wapi Lava Field, SE of the Craters of the Moon, covers about 325 km2, and consists of a low shield volcano formed during an eruption around 300 BCE that produced ~6 km3 of pahoehoe lava flows. The mass of layered lava flows and agglutinates forming the high point of the lava shield is named Pillar Butte. The vent area lies along the Great Rift of the Craters of the Moon and consists of five major and six minor vents covering an area of 0.5 km2. The largest of the vents contains several pit craters truncating lava lakes that filled the crater. The small King's Bowl rift immediately to the north formed at about the same time along a central eruptive fissure flanked by two parallel non-eruptive fissures. This eruption also produced a phreatic explosion that created Kings Bowl, an 80-m-long, 30-m-deep explosion crater. Split Butte maar to the west is partially overlapped by Wapi flows.