Brushy Butte Volcano

The broad inconspicuous volcano in the center of the photo is Brushy Butte, a small shield volcano SSE of the Medicine Lake Highlands. The Brushy Butte complex has produced a broad apron of basaltic lava flows, seen here from Timbered Crater with the Big Valley Mountain fault scarp in the background. Fresh-looking flows extend preferentially down the regional gradient to the south as far as the Falls River valley, but the age of Brushy Butte is not well known. The volcano may be of late-Pleistocene or early Holocene age. (Photo: Lee Siebert, Smithsonian Institution)