The hollow rock we visited earlier and many of the boulders that are scattered through this meadow were carried down to Paradise by a lahar about 6,000 years ago. The volcano had steamed intensely for many centuries as hot gases dissolved rocks into clay. Then the weak mass of rock and clay was jostled or shoved by a small eruption so that a huge block avalanched down across Paradise. The lahar, known as the Osceola Mudflow, flowed like wet cement and spread out into a sheet over ridges and valleys. It may have been 600 feet thick when the wet mass extended nearly 20 miles down the Paradise and Nisqually valleys. Remnants almost 15 feet thick remain in Paradise Meadow. When large boulders are carried far from their origins, they are called erratics. Erratics can be found throughout the park due to the powerful forces of glaciers, floods, and debris flows that have transported them.
Is there something we missed for this itinerary?
Itineraries across USA
Acadia
Arches National Park
Badlands
Big Bend
Biscayne
Black Canyon Of The Gunnison
Bryce Canyon
Canyonlands
Capitol Reef
Carlsbad Caverns
Channel Islands
Congaree
Crater Lake
Cuyahoga Valley
Death Valley
Dry Tortugas
Everglades
Gateway Arch
Glacier
Grand Canyon
Grand Teton
Great Basin
Great Smoky Mountains
Guadalupe Mountains
Haleakalā
Hawaiʻi Volcanoes
Hot Springs
Indiana Dunes
Isle Royale
Joshua Tree
Kenai Fjords
Kobuk Valley
Lassen Volcanic
Mammoth Cave
Mesa Verde
Mount Rainier
North Cascades
Olympic
Petrified Forest
Pinnacles
Rocky Mountain
Saguaro
Shenandoah
Theodore Roosevelt
Virgin Islands
Voyageurs
White Sands
Wind Cave
Yellowstone
Yosemite
Zion