Week 6 - Sutter Buttes

This week’s journey takes me to the mountain range Sutter Buttes located in Sutter County, CA. Looking at the geological map of California the Sutter Buttes where the first thing to stand out for me. When I first looked at the map I was courses to see what this formation was in what seemed like the middle of nowhere. Even though it is referred to as a mountain range due to its appearance it is in fact remnants of an ancient volcano.

Sutter Buttes was formed roughly 1.6 million years ago by volcanic activity, but it is unknown to what volcanic range it belongs to. There are two volcanic ranges that the buttes could belong to the Cascade Volcanoes or the California Coast Range. This raised more than a few questions for me.

1.       Why is this volcano so far from the other volcanic ranges?

2.       Is this really a volcano?

3.       Is it just one volcano?

To answer the first question a map of the fault lines would help trace the volcanic activity to the buttes. Questions two and three are directly tied together. The reason I question if this is a volcano is due to the scale of the buttes. It is roughly ten miles in diameter, and if this was a volcano that would have been a massive volcano, but the valley around the volcano shows no volcanic activity. To figure this out I would examine the minerals and rocks in the central area of the buttes to see if the composition of minerals and rocks are volcanic. The third and last question would be the hardest one to test for, and I am not sure how you would. Any test that could possibly be linked to more than one volcano could be ruled out simple due to the magma chambers shifting. It could possibly be one volcano that shifted over time. However, that wouldn’t explain the almost perfect diameter of the buttes. Also is there more volcanic activity in the area surrounding Sutter Buttes? 

This odd little spot on the map defiantly raises a lot of questions, and gives very little answers.