The Sand Butte Wilderness Study Area is a

Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands, U.S. federal lands. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the BLM oversees more than of land, or one ...

wilderness study area (WSA) in Lincoln County,

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...

. It covers about . The WSA is located to the south of

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve is a National monument (United States), U.S. national monument and national preserve in the Snake River Plain in central Idaho. It is along U.S. Route 20#Idaho, US 20 (Concurrency (road), concur ...

. Sand Butte itself is located in the northeast corner of the WSA, and has a maximum elevation of 4974 feet, standing approximately 300 feet above the surrounding plain. It is not composed of

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

, but

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

lava of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

age, of the Snake River Group.Kuntz, M.A., Champion, D.E., Lefebvre, R.H., and Covington, H.R. ''Geologic map of the Craters of the Moon, Kings Bowl, and Wapi lava fields, and the Great Rift volcanic rift zone, south-central Idaho''. Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map I-1632. 1988. Map Scale: 1:100,000 The WSA is accessible only by unimproved roads and offroad trails, or by hiking. Shale Butte Wilderness Study Area is to the south, and Raven's Eye Wilderness Study Area is adjacent to the north. Sand Butte Lincoln County Idaho panorama

Sand Butte Lincoln County Idaho panorama

References

Protected areas of Lincoln County, Idaho Protected areas established in 1992 Bureau of Land Management areas in Idaho 1992 establishments in Idaho {{LincolnCountyID-geo-stub