Mount Meager massif are covered with their eruptive products and serve as the surface expressions of intrusions. As a result, they provide a unique opportunity to study the relationships between magma chambers and their lavas. The mafic (rich in magnesium and iron), intermediate (between mafic and felsic) and felsic (rich in feldspar and quartz) volcanic rocks of the massif were erupted from at least eight volcanic vents. The Bridge River Vent is a relatively young volcanic crater that formed during an eruption about 2,400 years ago. This eruption ranged in character from explosive to effusive and involved lava dome extrusion, pyroclastic flows, lahars
Craton craton. Earth's surface was probably broken up into many small plates with volcanic islands and arcs in great abundance. Small protocontinents (cratons) formed as crustal rock was melted and remelted by hot spots and recycled in subduction zones. There were no large continents in the early Archean, and small protocontinents were probably the norm in the Mesoarchean because they were prevented from coalescing into larger units by the high rate of geologic activity. These felsic protocontinents (cratons) probably formed at hot spots from a variety of sources: mafic magma melting more felsic rocks, partial melting of mafic rock, and from