Bishop Tuff

October 19, 2008

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Provided and copyright by: Tim Martin
Summary Author: Tim Martin

The buff-colored tuff bluffs featured above are found just a few miles north of Bishop, California. They rise above the Owens River, a primary water source for Southern California, and are composed of tuff, ash and other pyroclastic material ejected from an eruption 760,000 years ago and deposited as lake-bed sediments. Pyroclastic flows covered much of what is now east-central California, and ash was deposited over much of what is now the southwestern United States. For scale, the boulder in the foreground (left center) is approximately 6.5 ft (2m) in height. Photograph taken in June 2007 while on a field Geology trip to Owens Valley with the Mississippi State University Teachers in Geoscience Program.

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