Hopi Buttes Volcano - Bidahochi Basin, Arizona

3D Model

This 3D model of a volcano in Northern Arizona’s Hopi Buttes region sits in the Bidahochi Basin, an ancestral lake that blanketed this landscape. Evidenced by columnar jointing of the basalt, which helps support the idea of rapid cooling by water on top, as well as nearby maar-diatreme volcanoes, it appears this volcano erupted into Lake Bidachochi while it was present. Further evidence of this lake is found with the presence of Tundra swan and Canada goose trackways and fossils along the ancient shoreline, as well as fossil ice casts, held at the Museum of Northern Arizona.

Lake Bidahochi (sometimes called Hopi Lake) may be a primary mechanism for the incision of the Grand Canyon by a breached dam. Dr. John Douglass in Arizona has a long-formulated theory regarding this connection which was presented at the Grand Canyon National Park geological symposium and viewable in this National Geographic program https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeBPKE5eDU0

–Nate Loper #ArizonaGuide