June 1998

Ro Kinzler and her team of Museum colleagues journey to the Columbia River Gorge in eastern Washington state to collect several gigantic columns of basalt. These columns formed about twelve million years ago during a voluminous but nonexplosive volcanic eruption of flood basalt that lasted from 17 million to 10 million years ago and covered much of southern Washington and northern Oregon. Volcanic processes like those that created this flood basalt play a key role in forming ocean basins, mountains, and continents.

A view of the Columbia River Gorge, a series of canyons cut through the Columbia River Flood Basalt Province in eastern Washington state.

photo credit: Jackie Beckett, © American Museum of Natural History