My husband and I were driving from Oregon to Iowa and stumbled on some (nerdy, scientific) interesting things. A sign on Hwy 26 led us to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve which is 750,000 acres of lava rocks (about 1/3 the size of Yellowstone National Park):
There is no single large volcano that made Craters of the Moon like Mount Vesuvius in Italy (the volcano that destroyed the city of Pompeii) or Mount St. Helens in Washington state (erupted in 1980). Instead, this lava flowed from cracks in the earth called “fissure eruptions” with multiple small craters formed by lava explosions. Craters of the Moon has been dormant for the past 2000 years. The area was once part of the ancestral homeland of the Shoshone-Bannock people. (Information gathered from the National Park Service website)
Apollo 14 astronauts visited in 1969 before going to the moon to study geology(rocks). Craters of the Moon is actually more similar to Mars than the moon. NASA has brought astronauts more recently to learn about Mars terrain.
http://idahoptv.org/shows/idahoexperience/episodes/whenApolloCameToIdaho/
Stay tuned for Geek Idaho 2 to see what we discovered 20 miles after Craters of the Moon.
