Geography 101, Section#3596/ Spring 2012

3 May 2012
Mount Shasta Volcano/
Virtual Field Trip Assignment

Mount Shasta Volcano Virtual Field Trip

For my field trip I really wanted the opportunity to travel somewhere I usually wouldn’t have the time or opportunity to travel to, so I decided to take a virtual field trip to Mount Shasta. This is also a place my mom tells me about from time to time because she took me here when I was very little, and after enough descriptions of it I wanted to see it for myself when I can actually remember it! Mount Shasta is a volcano located in the Cascade Range in northern California, and is one of the highest and largest of all volcanoes in the Cascade Mountain Range. This volcano is composed of overlapping cones centered at four or more main vents, and has been constructed over the course of the past 100,000 years – Terming this particular volcano a compound stratovolcano. Volcanoes such as Mount Shasta are usually cone shaped (called volcanic cones), and are composed of pyroclastics and viscous andesitic lava (a blockier type of lava). Many volcanoes also bring with them the presence of glaciers, there are seven named glacier on Mount Shasta. The most popular are The “Whitney” Glacier is the longest and the “Hotlum” is the most voluminous glacier in the state of California. There are many buried glacial scars on the mountain which were originally created in recent glacial periods (the “ice ages”. Over time, most of these have since been filled in with andesite lava, pyroclastic flows, and talus from lava domes, which add to the many layers of this massive stratovolcano. Due to its relative isolation, Mount Shasta has a high degree of vertical relief and can be seen from many miles away. The snowy peaks and volcanic cone shape are highly visible, and on a clear day can be seen from