Newberry National Volcanic Monument - Bend, OR - an active volcano in Bend, Oregon

The Newberry National Volcanic Monument was created during November 1990 in the Deschutes National Forest boundaries. The U.S. Forest Service manages the monument which provides unique opportunities to see central Oregon's Lava Lands. The monument has fifty thousand acres of varying geologic features.

Paulina Peak is the highest point in the Monument at 7,985 feet high and emphasizing the view of the High Desert and Oregon Cascades. There are two alpine lakes in the Newberry Volcano's summit area that are filled with salmon and trout. The volcano is five hundred square miles and active both geothermally and seismically. It is believed that the caldera is over a body of shallow magma that is only a maximum of five kilometers deep.

The Lava Lands Visitor Center at the Newberry National Volcanic Monument is open Wednesday through Sunday from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M. during May through June and from September 8th through October 15th. The center is open seven days a week from 9 A.M. until 5 P.M. from the first of July until the 7th of September.

The Newberry Volcano is composite volcano shaped like a shield with over a half million years of activity that includes caldera filling volcanism and caldera collapse. The volcano has erupted frequently with a number of eruptions in the Holocene. The volcano itself is approximately 3600 feet higher than the area around it. The Newberry Volcano covers over five hundred square miles and is one hundred and ten cubic miles in volume. The alluvium and lava flows of the volcano reach over forty miles from its base meaning that the volume of erupted material is probably more than the volume of the volcano.

The Newberry Volcano's are made up of mainly air fall tuffs, ash flow, basaltic flows and alluvial deposits on the west and east sides. Lava flows and basaltic andesite cinder cones on the south and north sides. The fissure vents and cinder cones which are the source of a number of flows covering the volcano's surface are estimated at around four hundred. The upper and middle portions of the volcano also have a number of areas with flows, rhyolite domes, rhyodacite and dacite.

The area of Newberry's summit caldera is estimated at being four miles north to south and five miles east to west. Paulina Creek cut a channel into the volcano to drain Paulina Lake making the caldera's west wall just a few tens of feet high in this area, other places in the wall of the caldera are only 500 to 1600 feet high. The Holocen and Pleistocene times found the caldera starting out 1600 feet deeper until domes, sedimentary rocks, flows and pyroclastic rocks filled it.

The history of Newberry Volcano and the beauty of the surrounding area make the Newberry National Volcanic Monument in Bend, Oregon an interesting place to visit if you are ever in the area. Visitors to the volcano can see millions of years of the land formations history in the lava flows. Additional details can be gotten by contacting the visitor's center at Newberry Volcano National Volcanic Monument directly.