ANIMATION CLIPS DEPICTING VOLCANIC FEATURES AND PROCESSES, CRATERS OF THE MOON NATIONAL MONUMENT AND PRESERVE, IDAHO

With assistance from the Educational Multimedia Visualization Center (EMVC) at the University of California: Santa Barbara, animation clips and geo-educational items illustrating features related to Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve (CRMO) and the regional geology were created using FLASH, Adobe Illustrator, ArcGIS, and Final Cut Pro software. Two versions of narrative text, including professional and introductory levels, and/or an audio track accompany the animation clips. Earth-Science students and teachers of all education levels as well as Monument visitors are the target audiences. Animation clips will be displayed at the CRMO Visitor Center, and are available on the EMVC, Idaho Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service websites for free downloading access (animations.geol.ucsb.edu, www.id.blm.gov/craters, www.nps.gov/crmo).

Animation clips depict and explain the formation of CRMO feature attractions, such as tree molds, cinder cones: including cinder cone breaching and cinder block rafting events, and also regional volcanic processes of rifting, dike emplacement, and rhyolitic-dome evolution. Though these animations describe CRMO and regional geologic features and processes, they are analogous to basaltic volcanism observed throughout the world. For example, animation clips of lava tree mold formation and volcanic rifting are based on Hawaiian observations. The clip depicting a scenario for the formation of Big Southern Butte (a high-silica-rhyolite cumulodome) is applicable as a model for rhyolitic-dome formation in other parts of the world. Future animation clips will include: 1) the surface lava-flow sequence for the Craters of the Moon lava field, 2) a 3-D lava-flow sequence of the above, and 3) the 1983 Borah Peak earthquake event and Lost River fault system.