Eve Cone

Eve Cone, sometimes referred to as Eve's Cone, is a cinder cone in Cassiar Land District of northwestern British Columbia, Canada. It has an elevation of and is one of several volcanic cones in the Desolation Lava Field at the northern end of the Big Raven Plateau. The cone is southeast of the community of Telegraph Creek in Mount Edziza Provincial Park, which is one of the largest provincial parks in British Columbia. A roughly lava flow travelled down the northern side of the Big Raven Plateau from Eve Cone during the Holocene. It branches out into much narrower channels, the largest extending to Buckley Lake.

Eve Cone is part of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex, which consists of diverse landforms such as shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, lava domes and cinder cones. The cone contains a circular, deep summit crater and was the source of an extensive lava flow that travelled down the northern side of the Big Raven Plateau towards Buckley Lake. Eve Cone is surrounded by a number of other volcanic features, including Tsekone Ridge, Pillow Ridge, Sidas Cone and the Triplex Coness from the communities of Telegraph Creek and Iskut, although landing on Buckley Lake with float-equipped aircraft is also promoted to reach Eve Cone.

Name and etymology

Jack Souther, a geologist of the Geological Survey of Canada who studied the area in detail from 1965 to 1992, named the cone after Eve Brown Edzerza. Edzerza was a local indigenous woman who traversed Mount Edziza by dog sled with her husband, Johnny Edzerza, and a Hank Williams in or before 1974. Johnny and Hank were killed in an avalanche on the mountain during a vicious snowstorm that had blown in from the north, but Eve survived, directing a rescue team to the site of the accident. Johnny was buried on Mount Edziza whereas Williams Cone on the northeastern side of the mountain was named in honour of Hank.

The name of the cone became official on January 2, 1980, and was adopted on the National Topographic System map 104G/15 after being submitted to the BC Geographical Names office by the Geological Survey of Canada. In his 1992 report ''The Late Cenozoic Mount Edziza Volcanic Complex, British Columbia'', Jack Souther gave Eve Cone the numeronym ''DLF-9''; ''DLF'' is an acronym for the Desolation Lava Field whereas ''9'' refers to Eve Cone being the ninth youngest eruptive centre in the Desolation Lava Field. BC Parks refers to the cone as both ''Eve Cone'' and ''Eve's Cone''.

Geography

Eve Cone is located in Cassiar Land District of northwestern British Columbia, Canada, about southeast of Buckley Lake at the northern end of the Big Raven Plateau. It has an elevation of and is one of several volcanic cones in the Desolation Lava Field, which is one of the largest areas of Holocene lava flows in the Mount Edziza volcanic complex. The volcanic complex consists of a group of overlapping shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes, lava domes and cinder cones that have formed over the last 7.5 million years. Eve Cone is one of the most symmetrical and best preserved cinder cones in Canada, rising above the surrounding terrain to a circular, deep summit crater. Lichen and pioneer vegetation sparsely grows on the base of this wide cone.

Apart from the main edifice of Mount Edziza which is a high stratovolcano, Eve Cone is surrounded by a number of other volcanic features. About southwest of Eve Cone is Tsekone Ridge on the northwestern flank of Mount Edziza. Pillow Ridge about south of Eve Cone extends northwest from the northern flank of Mount Edziza. About southeast of Eve Cone are the Triplex Cones about northwest of Eve Cone is a composite of two overlapping cones. Pillow Ridge and Tsekone Ridge are older volcanic features of Pleistocene age whereas Sidas Cone and the Triplex Cones are part of the younger Desolation Lava Field.

Eve Cone lies in Mount Edziza Provincial Park southeast of the community of Telegraph Creek. With an area of , Mount Edziza Provincial Park is one of the largest provincial parks in British Columbia and was established in 1972 to showcase the volcanic landscape. It includes not only the Mount Edziza area, but also the Spectrum Range to the south, which are separated by Raspberry Pass. Mount Edziza Provincial Park is in the Tahltan Highland, a southeast-trending upland area extending along the western side of the Stikine Plateau.

Geology

Background

As a part of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex, Eve Cone lies within a broad area of volcanoes and lava flows called the Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province, which extends from northwestern British Columbia northwards through Yukon into easternmost Alaska. The dominant rocks comprising these volcanoes are alkali basalts and hawaiites, but nephelinite, basanite and peralkaline phonolite, trachyte and comendite are locally abundant. These rocks were deposited by volcanic eruptions from 20 million years ago to as recently as a few hundred years ago. The cause of volcanic activity in the Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province is thought to be due to rifting of the North American Cordillera driven by changes in relative plate motion between the North American and Pacific plates.

Structure

Eve Cone is a monogenetic cinder cone which are simple volcanic edifices that erupted over a single eruptive phase. Such features are typically considered to erupt only once and to be short-lived; they can remain active from days to years, but are fed by a relatively small amount of magma. Eve Cone consists of hawaiite of the Big Raven Formation and is one of the two youngest eruptive centres in the Desolation Lava Field, the other being Williams Cone about to the southeast. The symmetrical structure of Eve Cone suggests it was formed by a towering, vertical lava fountain during the Holocene. Loosely aggregated volcanic ejecta such as bombs, cinders and ash covers the outer surface of Eve Cone.

Relatively fine, dark grey bombs and cinders cover the northern half of Eve Cone whereas coarser, clinkery spatter is exposed in the more deeply eroded southern half of the cone. Erosion on the southern flank is more extreme due to accelerated frost wedging and solifluction which may be caused by greater and more frequent temperature changes. In contrast to Williams Cone whose surroundings are at least still partially covered with fine ash from its eruption, ash from the Eve Cone eruption has completely eroded away from the surrounding landscape; this indicates Eve Cone is older than Williams Cone.

Lava field

Nearly all of the lava erupted from Eve Cone appears to have originated from vents around the base of the volcanic edifice. This is particularly evident on the southeastern side of the cone where there is a nearly high buttress of overlapping tiers of lava lobes. Streams of lava from these vents merged to form a roughly long lava field which extends down the northern side of the Big Raven Plateau. It has a maximum width of about , overlies older lava flows from the Triplex Cones and abuts with older lava flows in the northeast from Sidas Cone. The lava flows comprising this field branch out into much narrower lava channels to the north and northwest, the largest of which is approximately long and reaches the northeastern end of Buckley Lake. A shorter channel just south of Buckley Lake forms a lava bed with the Triplex Cones lava flows.

Accessibility

Eve Cone is in a remote location with no established road access; the closest roads are the Stewart–Cassiar Highway to the east and the Telegraph Creek Road to the northwest, both of which extend within of the cone. Extending from these roads are horse trails that provide access to the Mount Edziza volcanic complex. From Telegraph Creek, the Buckley Lake Trail extends about southeast along Mess Creek and Three Mile Lake. It then traverses about northeast along Dagaichess Creek and Stinking Lake to the northeastern end of Buckley Lake where it meets with the Klastline River Trail and the Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route.

To the east, the roughly long Klastline River Trail begins at the community of Iskut on the Stewart–Cassiar Highway. It extends northwest and west along the Klastline River for much its length. The trail enters Mount Edziza Provincial Park at about where Kakiddi Creek drains into the Klastline River. After entering Mount Edziza Provincial Park, the Klastline River Trail traverses northwest along the Klastline River for about and then crosses the river north of the Big Raven Plateau. From there, the Klastline River Trail traverses west for about to the northeastern end of Buckley Lake where it meets with the Buckley Lake Trail and Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route.

The Buckley Lake to Mowdade Lake Route traverses south from Buckley Lake along Buckley Creek and gradually climbs onto the northern end of the Big Raven Plateau where Eve Cone and Sidas Cone are visible along the route. BC Parks recommends visitors to ascend Eve Cone using the main trail on its southeastern flank to prevent foot scarring on its delicate surface. This route leads to a small bench on the northeastern side of the cone and provide access to the crater rim. Buckley Lake northwest of Eve Cone is large enough to be used by float-equipped aircraft, but landing on this lake with a private aircraft requires a letter of authorization from the BC Parks Stikine Senior Park Ranger. Alpine Lakes Air and BC Yukon Air are the only air charter companies permitted to provide access to this area via aircraft.

See also

*List of Northern Cordilleran volcanoes
*List of volcanoes in Canada
*Volcanism of the Mount Edziza volcanic complex

References

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External links

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{{Northern Cordilleran volcanoes

Cinder cones of British Columbia
Holocene cinder cones
Monogenetic cinder cones
Parasitic cones of Mount Edziza
Desolation Lava Field
One-thousanders of British Columbia