I've been meaning to post these images for nearly... 8 months now. In the early part of my sabbatical during the summer of 2010 my dad and I took a few day trips to various spots around New Mexico. One of the day trips was to El Malpias National Monument. The national monument contains prehistoric lava flows from several surrounding volcanoes. El Malpais means "bad lands" in Spanish.
This first image is taken from the Sandstone Bluffs. On the left, just past the edge of the bluffs you can see the lava flow several hundred feet below. On the right, on the horizon is Mt. Taylor (named for President Zachary Taylor) which stands at 11,301 ft. in elevation. It has names in at least 9 different languages (Tsoodzil and Kaweshtima are two other names).
This second image shows a close up of one type of lava feature in the Lava Falls area in the McCartys Crater. The lava is primarily basalt and these particular rocks are examples of Xenoliths (I could not find any information on the iridescent colored moss).
I thought the lava looked a lot like the tops of the brownies my mom used to make when we were kids. The lava formations shown here are called pahoehoe (pa-hoy-hoy) which refers to the smoother looking lava. The Lava Falls trail was the only trail we hiked on that day.
I was hoping to make it to some of the lava tubes and caves to do some exploring, but unfortunately we did not. The National Park Service has since closed the lava tubes due to bats developing a fungal disease known as "White-Nose syndrome." They have no plans to re-open the tubes until they determine if the disease was caused naturally or introduced by visitors to the park.
