About 16 million years ago an enormous volcano erupted in the Pacific Northwest, pouring lava across what’s now Washington, Oregon and Idaho, ultimately burying the region to the height of a 30-story building.
Before now, most geologists believed that it took almost 2 million years to erupt all that lava, collectively known as “the Columbia River flood basalts.” But new research shows it happened more than twice as fast as previously believed, with 95 percent erupting within a 750,000-year window.
“This is the most significant paper to come out about the Columbia River flood basalts in a decade or two,” said Stephen Reidel, a research professor of geology at Washington State University-Tri-Cities, who has studied these lava flows since 1972 and contributed to the study analysis.
The researchers “deserve a lot of compliments for thinking to look at the zircons in the ash beds between the flows…,” he said. “Of course, now we’re going to have to go back and re-calculate everything that used the old timeline or eruption rate. That’s okay — that’s part of the fun.”
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