The Shale 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. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...

wilderness study area (WSA) in Lincoln County,

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

. It covers . The WSA is located to the south of Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. Shale Butte itself is located in the northeast corner of the WSA. It is not composed of

shale Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4) and tiny fragments (silt-sized particles) of other minerals, especial ...

, 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 ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

age.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 lava extends to the south from the butte to cover the eastern WSA. The WSA is accessible only by unimproved roads and jeep trails, or by hiking. To the north is Sand Butte Wilderness Study Area. File:Lava flow southeastern Shale Butte Wilderness Study Area.jpg, Lava flow in southeastern Shale Butte WSA File:Terrain of northern Shale Butte Wilderness Study Area.jpg, Terrain of northern Shale Butte WSA File:Shale Butte caldera Idaho 20200818.jpg, Caldera of Shale Butte

References

External links

Volcanic landscape
top of plateau in southeastern Shale Butte Wilderness Area 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