What is the "Great Rift?"

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The Snake River Plain is a crescent-shaped depression 50-70 miles wide and 350 miles long. It marks the path of the earth’s crust as it migrates over a heat source unusually close to the surface. This is the same heat source that fuels Yellowstone’s geysers. There are many layers of lava flows in the plain, in places they are a mile thick.

Little Jacks Creek Canyon in Idaho's Owyhee Canyonlands, southwestern Idaho. Poison ivy, willows, sagebrush, hopsage, and desert sage are some of the flora found in the canyon corridor. Little Jacks Creek has cut a sinuous path through old lava flows.
Photo by Lynna Howard. Copyright 2007.

More than you ever wanted to know about sagebrush:
Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata and Artemisia rigida) is named in honor of Artemisia, wife of Mausolus, ancient ruler of Caria (Southwest Asia Minor). Mausolus died in 353 B.C. and his wife perpetuated his memory by erecting a magnificent mausoleum which became one of the seven wonders of the world. Artemisia herself was named in honor of the Greek goddess Artemis, the virgin huntress or goddess of wild nature. So, sagebrush is a god of sorts, a ruler of wild nature, which is pretty much true. It has the broadest ecological tolerance and can survive under the greatest range of environmental conditions. The Artemisia name also shows the propensity of plant namers and classifiers to live with one foot in a very detailed reality and the other foot in myth. I think Greek and Roman gods (and potentates) must always be running around in the shadows of their minds.

Description: Many-branched, erect shrub with a definite trunk, strong exfoliating bark, and very grayish-green and strongly aromatic leaves.

Flowers are yellowish to greenish gray, small, occurring in dense leafy panicles from July to October. Flower heads ovoid, silver-green, numerous.

Leaves 1/2 to 1 3/4 inches long, variable, generally expanding from base to tip; usually 3, but sometimes as many as 9, blunt teeth at tip.

Tall sagebrush has evolved a number of adaptations designed to increase the efficiency of water absorption and retention under semiarid conditions. The plants produce two types of leaves. The principal, lobed ones persist throughout the year. Smaller and softer, non-lobed leaves appear along the branch tips in early winter and drop during drought conditions the following summer. This allows more rapid growth during the relatively moist conditions of early spring and enables the plant to conserve resources during the hot, dry summer. Both leaf types are small with a limited surface area from which water can be lost through evaporation. A dense covering of grayish hairs on the leaves further reduces transpiration by reflecting sunlight, thereby cooling the plant, and by inhibiting the movement of drying wind across the leaf surface. 

Fruit: Resinous achenes. Sagebrush reproduces entirely from seed and after fire may be replaced for a time by sprouting shrubs.

Sagebrush is not eaten by cattle, but is a valuable forage plant for wildlife, particularly during the winter. It is browsed by deer, moose, elk, antelope, and bighorn sheep, especially in late winter and spring (sagebrush being everyone’s last choice in meals). Sage grouse feed heavily on sagebrush. Sagebrush provides nesting sites for many birds, including a variety of songbirds. Even more nutritious than alfalfa, this shrub consists of 16 percent proteins, 15 percent fats, and 47 percent carbohydrates (I guess it just tastes bad, like most health food).

Humans have used the plant primarily as firewood – the volatile oils responsible for its pungent aroma are so flammable that they can cause even green plants to burn. I wouldn’t burn sagebrush because it’s likely to trigger volatile allergic reactions when human’s smell the smoke.

Desert Sage (Salvia dorrii) -- this is the sagebrush that doesn't quite look like sagebrush. It often grows in association with big sagebrush. If you are there at the right time, you will see it blooming. It is the famous "purple sage" of Zane Grey's "Riders of the Purple Sage."  It's a broad bush with rigid branches, silvery leaves, and bright blue to blue-violet flowers. Supposed to bloom from May to July. Habitat is dry flats and slopes east of the Cascade Mountains and Sierra Nevada, including southwestern Idaho.

— Lynna Howard

MORE GEOLOGY

[Lynna notes that John McPhee in his book "Annals of the Former World" presents the period of volcanism in this area memorably, and adds his own twist to the story with the help of geologist, David Love. Here are some excerpts from McPhee's book:]
         In increasing numbers, geologists have come to believe that in a deep geophysical sense Yellowstone is not what is moving. They believe that the great heat that has expressed itself in so many ways on the topographic surface of the modern park derives from a source in the mantle far below the hull of North America. They believe that as North America slides over this fixed locus of thermal energy the rising heat is so intense that it penetrates the plate. The geologic term for such a place is "hot spot."...In Oregon and Washington, in the middle Miocene two hundred and fifty thousand cubic kilometres flowed out within three million years. Having achieved the surface in this form, the plume begins to make its track as the plate above slides by, just as Yellowstone, starting off from the flood basalts of Oregon and Washington, stretched out the pathway that has become the Snake River Plain.
     During the past twenty milllion years, the region that we like to call the Old West is thought to have been passing over not one but two hot spots, which have done much to affect the appearance of the whole terrain. The other one is less intense than Yellowstone, and is at present centered unter Raton, New Mexico...Work done in the rock-dating laboratory of Richard Armstrong, a geochemist and geochronologist at the University of British Columbia, showed that Basin and Range faulting began at the western extreme of the region and moved eastward at a general rate of twenty-eight miles per million years—a frame commensurate in time and space with the continent's progress over the hot spots now positioned under Yellowstone and Raton. The Tetons began to rise eight million years ago and are clearly not products of the Laramide Orogeny. They are a result of extensional faulting, and conform to hot-spot theory as the easternmost expression of the Basin and Range...
     Inevitably, it has been suggested that someday North America may split apart along the Yellowstone perforations of the Snake River Plain. "That gives me a caution," says David Love..."In the Snake River Plain, the volcanics do get older east to west—in a broad sense, yes. But when you get down to details you get down to discrepancies...I would like to see a lot more regional information...The Yellowstone-Absaroka hot spot abruptly terminated at the end of Eocene time. Where the hell did that hot spot go? Twenty-five to thirty million years later, it was reactivated in the same place. What was that plume doing for all those millions of years? How do you reactivate a plume?" [end excerpts from John McPhee's book.]

Photo of ferns growing incongruously in the desert environment of Hells Half Acre, a portion of the Great Rift. Fractures in lava fows capture water and provide shade from the intense summer sun.

“Devils Vomit” has a certain metaphoric flair. Pioneers struggling through the hardened lava flows of southern Idaho came up with the name about 1840. We could have honored that legacy with “Devils Vomit National Monument.” It has verve, it has rhythm, it sports a beguiling trochaic skip and enough slant rhyme to put down roots in your memory bank.  Now that “Craters of the Moon National Monument” is a tourist magnet and presidential decrees “assure protection of the entire Great Rift volcanic zone and associated lava features, all objects of scientific interest,” we seem to have taken a more mild-mannered approach to naming the landscape.

The geological Great Rift and the federal-government-proclaimed Great Rift overlap but are not the same. As usual, nature’s version is grander in both size and time.

The Great Rift system is a series of north-northwest-trending fractures in the earth’s crust. These fractures extend 50 miles from the northern margin of the eastern Snake River Plain, southward to the Snake River. In 2000, President Clinton expanded the Craters of the Moon National Monument to include most of the Great Rift area (see mind-numbing proclamation appended at end of this rambling discourse). The total rift system is 62 miles long and is the longest known rift zone in the United States.

On Goodales Cutoff of the Oregon Trail, the hardened basalt flows cut up the hooves of oxen and horses, shattered wagon wheels and tested the spirit of 1800s pioneers forced to cross in the heat of the summer. Modern-day explorers are treated to a visitor center and to paved trails at Craters of the Moon. The sun still takes its toll, making early spring and late autumn better times for exploration. Off-trail hiking is permitted in the less civilized areas, but be prepared with basalt-proof boots and lots of drinking water. A compass is not reliable for directional purposes in the Great Rift because magnetic fields distort the compass readings. Gravity and magnetic surveys indicate a thick layer of dense, strongly-magnetic rock. Poetic impulses are relatively reliable and we strongly advise pen and paper be added to your expeditionary gear.

The lava flows that inspired “Devils Vomit” stem from an underground magma chamber in the eastern Snake River Plain. Fractures are the weak spots where the earth breathes liquid rock upward from the underground chamber. All of the Great Rift area is currently dormant, but dormant does not mean dead. Fractures here are caused by tension related to regional extension of the Basin and Range province. Fault blocks from the Continental Divide westward form the Basin and Range. Each range is a slice of the Rocky Mountains that has been pulled away, pulled west from its original position. The mountain blocks are still slowly moving away from each other, thinning the crust of the valleys as they go, spreading out and leaving isolated ranges like the Owyhee Mountains  of southwestern Idaho sitting alone to lord it over an attending desert.

The flows that fleck southern Idaho have the same parent as Yellowstone National Park's geothermal activity. This Magma Mama stays in the same place as young mountains are born when the continent moves across her. Her name is now "the Yellowstone Hotspot" but about 17 million years ago she sprang into action close to what is now the Owyhee River area in southwestern Idaho. After passing over the hotspot, the earth’s crust settles due to contraction from cooling and due to the weight (density) of the basalt. This is the favored hypothesis for the existence of the Snake River Plain. The mountains of the Basin and Range are still rising, the valleys are still dropping, the crust is still being stretched, and the whole shebang is still alive and kicking.

Just a little aside here: Geologists often fight among themselves like members of a dysfunctional family. They call this “scientific discourse” but it can approach vitriol and mayhem. We suggest you don’t take our word for this simplified version of the Great Rift, but do some of your own research if want to triangulate the truth from various sources. See Lynna Howard's geology page for some additional information on past volcanic activity.

Basin and range faults are the adolescent peers or the little siblings of the Snake River Plain in terms of the geological timeline. This area has been under north-east-southwest extension during the last 17 million years. About 350 cubic miles of lava were erupted from an 80-mile-long vent system at the rate of about 0.3 cubic mile per day. The flows at Hells Half Acre near Idaho Falls and Blackfoot, in eastern Idaho, are about 4,100 years old. There were Native Americans in this area to see the event (and to run from it?). Some of the flows at Craters of the Moon are as recent as 2,000 years ago.

-- Lynna Howard

And now for excerpts from mind-numbing officialese:

The Craters of the Moon National Monument was established on May 2, 1924 … The expanded monument includes almost all the features of basaltic volcanism, including the craters, cones, lava flows, caves, and fissures of the 65-mile-long Great Rift, a geological feature that is comparable to the great rift zones of Iceland and Hawaii. It comprises the most diverse and geologically recent part of the lava terrain that covers the southern Snake River Plain, a broad lava plain made up of innumerable basalt lava flows that erupted during the past 5 million years.

In 1996, a minor boundary adjustment was made by section 205 of the Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996 (Public Law 104-333, 110 Stat. 4093, 4106). This Proclamation enlarges the boundary to assure protection of the entire Great Rift volcanic zone and associated lava features, all objects of scientific interest. The Craters of the Moon, Open Crack, Kings Bowl, and Wapi crack sets and the associated Craters of the Moon, Kings Bowl, and Wapi lava fields constitute this volcanic rift zone system. … Craters of the Moon holds the most diverse and youngest part of the lava terrain that covers the southern Snake River Plain of Idaho, a broad plain made up of innumerable basalt lava flows during the past 5 million years. The most recent eruptions at the Craters of the Moon took place about 2,100 years ago and were likely witnessed by the Shoshone people, whose legend speaks of a serpent on a mountain who, angered by lightening, coiled around and squeezed the mountain until the rocks crumbled and melted, fire shot from cracks, and liquid rock flowed from the fissures as the mountain exploded…

WHEREAS it appears that it would be in the public interest to reserve such lands as an addition to the Craters of the Moon National Monument: NOW, THEREFORE, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are hereby set apart and reserved as an addition to the Craters of the Moon National Monument, for the purpose of protecting the objects identified above, all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the United States within the boundaries of the area described on the map entitled "Craters of the Moon National Monument Boundary Enlargement" attached to and forming a part of this proclamation.

The Federal land and interests in land reserved consist of approximately 661,287 acres, which is the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected….

The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the area being added to the monument through the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service, pursuant to legal authorities, to implement the purposes of this proclamation. The National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management shall manage the monument cooperatively and shall prepare an agreement to share, consistent with applicable laws, whatever resources are necessary to manage properly the monument; however, the National Park Service shall have primary management authority over the portion of the monument that includes the exposed lava flows, and shall manage the area under the same laws and regulations that apply to the current monument. The Bureau of Land Management shall have primary management authority over the remaining portion of the monument, as indicated on the map entitled, "Craters of the Moon National Monument Boundary Enlargement."...

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fifth.

WILLIAM J. CLINTON

We know there's a Great Rift in Africa, but ours is the longest known rift zone in the United States, about 62 miles. I don't know the density of writers along our rift, but it's higher than you might think—like invasive weeds.

"The artistic life is a long, lovely suicide."

— Oscar Wilde

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Great Rift Writers is a diverse group of practitioners of the literary arts that aims to do justice to inner and outer landscapes. Criteria for membership is loose (and that’s putting it mildly). Most of the members live in or along the geological Great Rift in Idaho, and along the rift's associated Snake River Plain. Members of Great Rift Writers have also migrated to Alaska, Oregon, and Texas, but still participate via the internet. GRW usually meets once a month for a workshop that focuses on poetry or prose works that members bring. Bring at least six copies of any work you'd like to read and discuss. Criticism can be of the hug-and-smile, the kleenex, the bandaid, or the tourniquet-required variety.

Send email to lynna.howard@mac.com if you would like to attend an upcoming workshop. Or just show up. See our calendar of events in the right column.

 

A reminder to everyone: It is time to pay dues for 2008. The dues are $25.00 per year. Leslie Ovard is acting as our treasurer for now, so please make checks payable to her. In the memo portion write "GRW MEMBERSHIP." You can bring cash or check to a GRW meeting, or mail payment to Lynna Howard at 441 Hummingbird Lane, Shelley, ID 83274 (Lynna's house is the GRW snail mail location). Prospective members can attend a couple of workshops first before deciding if they want to join or not.

Great Rift Writers is a non-profit organization.

Other Events

May 8, 2008
Water Appreciation Week Poetry Contest
Great Rift Writers presents awards for poetry written by local students.
Tautphaus Park, Idaho Falls

May 22, 2008
Lynna and Leland Howard present Art Meets Adventure™ at BYUI, in Rexburg, Idaho. The presentation is part of an Art Seminar series at the college. 6 PM to 7:30 PM in Smith Auditorium.

aspen grove

Photo above by Leland Howard, © 2007

 

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Put your thoughts on paper, partake of monthly workshops, and demonstrate that you won’t bleed to death under an assault of friendly criticism and you’re likely to become a Great Rift Writer. See our calendar for upcoming workshops, or contact our designated receiver of emails for more details.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

GRW Monthly Workshop
Send email to lynna.howard@mac.com if you need more information. Workshops are from 7 to 9 PM on the 4th Wednesday of every month.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008
GRW WORKSHOP, at 7:00 PM
Place: University of Idaho--Bonneville County Extension Office Conference Room
2925 Rollandet, in Idaho Falls

Homework assignment for 06/25/2008:
Choose one of the "Seven Deadly Virtues" or "Seven Saving Vices" below as inspiration for a poem. We've listed more than seven, and you can add your own if you like. Our goal is to choose 14 poems (7 from each category) and publish a chapbook. The overall theme is to celebrate life, living authentically and being true to the human experience. Credit (or blame) for this homework idea goes to Bill Peters.

Seven Deadly Virtues
Cleanliness
Certainty
Perfection
Temperance
Idealism
Political Correctness
Environmentalism
Abstinance
Planning Ahead
Objectivity
Autonomy
Deference
Perseverance
Selflessness
Humility
Patience
Tolerance
Responsibility
Working Hard
Propriety
Benevolence
Piety
Bravery
Looking on the Bright Side
Caution

Seven Saving Vices
Procrastination
Squandering Time
Irreverence
Sloth
Lust
Swearing
Intemperance
Impracticality
Irratiional Exuberance
Winging It or Improvisation
Impatience
Failure
Obsession
Impulsiveness
Impudence
Complacency
Lolly Gagging
Being or Getting Dirty
Childishness
Crotchety-ness
Wildness

Try to avoid:
1. Writing directly about moderation in all things
2. Too much exposition
3. Lack of concrete detail and attention to the senses

Ideally, each person will write at least one Deadly Virtue and one Saving Vice poem, but do what is good for your own art.

Go forth and write! Prose poems welcome. Squander time, and call it well-spent.

Bring at least six copies of work you want to share. Depending on the number of writers at the workshop, we will have about 10 to 20 minutes per person. If you have longer poems or prose pieces you want to workshop, you should chose an excerpt to present to the group. Writers can bring longer works for members to take home, but don't expect the entire piece to be covered in one workshop. Please include your name, phone number, and email address on each piece.

Future GRW Workshop Dates, 2008
July 23
August 27
September 24
October 22
November 19

All workshops are from 7:00 PM to 9 PM
University of Idaho--Bonneville County Extension Office
Upstairs Conference Room
2925 Rollandet, in Idaho Falls
The Great Rift Writers' website is a subset of the website of "PrueHeart the Wanderer," so don't be too confused if you end up on a PrueHeart page. Great Rift Writers is a non-profit organization, and we're saving money by using an existing website (no domain name registration fees, no additional hosting fees).

Legalese: Unless otherwise noted, the text and images that appear on this web site are copyrighted material. Please do not copy or redistribute these materials in any way without prior permission. Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007. Thank you, Lynna Howard, Bill Peters, Amanda Jackson, and other members of Great Rift Writers.