Newberry Volcano

As part of a systematic focus on improving monitoring of potentially dangerous volcanoes in the United States, including in the Pacific Northwest's Cascade Range, Hawaii, the Mariana Islands, and Alaska, the U.S. Geological Survey has ranked U.S. volcanoes according to their risk (Ewert and others, 2005). Of 169 potentially restive volcanoes of record in the United States and its territories, Newberry Volcano in central Oregon was ranked in the top 18 “Very High Threat Volcanoes” category.

The 400,000-year-old Newberry Volcano in central Oregon (fig. 1) lies east of the main axis of the Cascade Range and has erupted as recently as 1,300 years before present (B.P.) (MacLeod and others, 1982; MacLeod and Sherrod, 1988; Fitterman, 1988; Sherrod and others, 1997; Sherrod and others, 2004; Jensen and others, 2009; Donnelly-Nolan and others, 2011). The volcano and its extended apron of lavas cover an area about 20 times larger than that of Mount St. Helens in Washington State and produced at least six times the volume of magmatic material (Sherrod and Smith, 1990). Newberry Volcano lies at the west end of the High Lava Plains (Walker, 1969; Druken and others, 2011; Eagar and others, 2011), a subprovince of the Basin and Range. It also lies just east of a shallower than usual north-south ridge of the Curie-point isotherm (Bouligand and others, 2009) that coincides approximately with the main Cascade Range.

The regional topography can be seen in figure 2, where the maximum known extent of Newberry Volcano lava flows is represented by a thick black line. Newberry Caldera and the most obvious volcanic edifice occupy a smaller, topographically higher area east of La Pine, with Paulina Peak dominating the south rim of the caldera (fig. 1). The magnetic, gravity, and radiometric data discussed following this are the most recent sets available in the public domain.

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Suggested citation:

Wynn, Jeff, 2014, Gravity, magnetic, and radiometric data for Newberry Volcano, Oregon, and vicinity: U.S. Geological Survey Data Series 830, https://dx.doi.org/10.3133/ds830.

U.S. Department of the Interior
SALLY JEWELL, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey
Suzette M. Kimball, Acting Director