The dramatic Kings Bowl rift cutting diagonally across the top of the photo produced a small 6-sq-km lava field about 2250 years ago immediately north of the much larger Wapi lava field. Kings Bowl itself is the small elongated crater on the right-center side of the rift in this photo; it formed during a phreatic explosion that deposited lighter-colored tephra to the east (upper right). The massive Wapi lava field, located out of view south (right) of Kings Bowl, covers an area of about 325 km² and originated from Pillar Butte, a small shield volcano.

Photo by Susan Sakimoto (NASA, courtesy of Scott Hughes, Idaho State University).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license terms.

Wapi Lava Field