Crater Lake and Wizard Island with snow on the peaks surrounding the caldera. Clear day with no clouds, and little wind.
Wide Photo of Crater Lake including Wizard Island. Wizard Island was created after Mount Mazama, a large stratovolcano, erupted violently approximately 7,700 years ago, forming its caldera which now contains Crater Lake. Following the cataclysmic caldera-forming eruption, which left a hole about 4,000 feet (1,200 m) deep where the mountain had once stood, a series of smaller eruptions over the next several hundred years formed several cinder cones on the caldera floor. The highest of these cones, the only one to rise above the current lake level, is Wizard Island, which rises over 2,700 feet (820 m) above the lowest point on the caldera floor and the deepest point in the lake. A crater lake is a lake that forms in a volcanic crater or caldera, such as a maar; less commonly and with lower association to the term a lake may form in an impact crater caused by a meteorite, or in an artificial explosion caused by humans. Sometimes lakes which form inside calderas are called caldera lakes, but often this distinction is not made. Crater lakes covering active (fumarolic) volcanic vents are sometimes known as volcanic lakes, and the water within them is often acidic, saturated with volcanic gases, and cloudy with a strong greenish color. For example, the crater lake of Kawah Ijen in Indonesia has a pH of under [1] Lakes located in dormant or extinct volcanoes tend to have fresh water, and the water clarity in such lakes can be exceptional due to the lack of inflowing streams and sediment.
Size: 3680px × 2449px
Location: Crater Lake National Park, Klamath County, Oregon, USA
Photo credit: © Vincent Palermo / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1902, american, caldera, cinder, cone, county, crater, crest, established, fumarolic, island, klamath, lake, maar, mazama, mount, national, oregon, pacific, park, pumice, rim, snow, stratovolcano, trail, usa, volcanic, west, wizard
