Pahvant Butte
December 08, 2012
Photographer: Patrick Wiggins
Summary Author: Patrick Wiggins
While flying over the Black Rock Desert near the town of Delta, Utah earlier in the fall, I captured the photo above showing a barren and exposed lump of tuff known as Pahvant Butte. It was taken through an open window of a Cessna 172, flying 1,000 m above the surface. The top of the butte is approximately 225 m above the surrounding desert floor. This butte is an eroded volcano that exploded some 15,500 years ago. At the time the volcano blew up, part of it was actually beneath Lake Bonneville, an ancient inland sea. It’s interesting to think that I was flying over what is now the desert floor but was once a vast body of water. Note the triangularly-shaped talus debris clogging drainage channels at the base of the butte.
Photo Details: Camera: NIKON D70; Lens: 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-6.3; Focal Length: 35mm (35mm equivalent: 52mm); Aperture: f/8.0; Exposure Time: 0.0040 s (1/250); ISO equiv: 400; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows.
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