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Panum Crater

Partial Dome Surrounded by Exposed Tephra Ring

Lava Dome in Inyo NF, Mono Basin National Scenic Area, Sierra Nevada near Lee Vining, CA

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Panum Crater is a volcanic cone that is part of the Mono-Inyo Craters, a chain of recent volcanic cones south of Mono Lake and east of the Sierra Nevada, in California, United States. Panum Crater is between 600 and 700 years old, and it exhibits all of the characteristics of the textbook rhyolitic lava dome. Rhyolitic volcanoes are characterized by having large amounts of silica (quartz) in their lava. The content of silica at Panum is about 76 percent. It makes the lava very viscous, or thick, and very glassy. Products of this rhyolitic eruption are pumice and obsidian, the volcanic glass that Native Americans used to make arrow points and scrapers. Panum Crater formed in a sequence of events. The first event was caused by magma rising from deep within the Earth's crust. When this…