Mess Lake Lava Field black young basalt. Its westernmost and southwesternmost ends are flanked by the Mess Creek Escarpment, forming a steep prominent cliff. This cliff exposes several layers of black columnar basaltic lava flows with distal rock fragments and pyroclastic deposits. Eruptions of the young Mess Lake Lava Field basalts cascaded down this steep lava cliff similar to what occurs at the island of Hawaii and covered some of the columnar basalt jointing. Near Mess Lake, inactive hot springs can be found and are most likely associated with the most recent eruptive activity in the Mess Lake Lava Field. Hot springs are closely
Trap rock the Green with trap rock quarried from Eli Whitney's quarry, is a particularly colorful example of a red-orange-brown-colored, natural-faced trap rock. It was also used for foundations and railroad beds in the New Haven area. Well-known examples of outcropping trap rock include both intrusive sills and extrusive lava flows. They include the Palisades Sill, a Triassic, 200 Ma diabase intrusion that forms the Palisade along of the Hudson River in New York and New Jersey. Vast areas of trap rock in the form of thick lava flows and other volcanic rocks comprise the Deccan Traps of India and Siberian Traps