The Moon is Lava!
VITAL STATS
Name: Earth’s Moon
Eruption Status: Dormant?
Last Eruption: Less than 100,000 years ago
Location: 238,900 miles out in space
Do you remember playing “The Floor is Lava” when you were a kid? If not, you should definitely start a game right now. Wherever you are. It’s a blast! But let’s play a different game today…
The Moon is Lava!
It certainly looked as though this might be the case last Sunday evening during the lunar eclipse. The usual pearly glow of the full moon (a super moon in this case) was replaced by a deep red glow as the Earth blocked the sun’s light. Lunar eclipses like this only happen when the Sun, Earth, and Moon are in a straight line. Earth completely blocks the sunlight from the moon, and what light does refract around the Earth’s atmosphere gives the moon a bloody red appearance. Phew! So that’sall it was? Good. But let me tell you a little secret, my friend. The moon IS lava.
Capulin: The Boca Trail
VITAL STATS
Name: Capulin
Type: Cinder Cone
Eruption Status: Extinct
Last Eruption: Approximately 60,000 years ago
Location: 36.7811° N, 103.9695° W
Northeastern New Mexico; Raton-Clayton Volcanic Field
We coasted down the volcano road, enjoying our descent from Capulin’s summit. The clouds had finally lifted and myriad volcanoes now popped up from the dusty New Mexican landscape. My partner in crime and I headed in to the Visitor Center for a quick break and a chat with the friendly and knowledgable park rangers. They offered us great information about how Capulin became a national monument in 1916 and how summit road was covertly created in 1925 so that the first Model T’s could putter to the top. Our ranger friends even were able to answer questions about the volcanism of the area. They confirmed that what we spotted on the lava flow trail earlier in the day was indeed andesite – which gave this volcano its explosive past.
Itching to get back outside and explore the Boca Trail, we drove back to the same parking lot where the Lava Flow trail started. Instead of heading South and sweeping through the volcano’s second lava flow, this trail heads north and winds between the cinder cone and the third lava flow. But here, we found something special. We found the vent from which each of these lava flows emerged.