Black Rock Desert volcanic field Black Rock Desert volcanic field The Black Rock Desert volcanic field in Millard County, Utah, is a cluster of several volcanic features of the Great Basin such as Pavant Butte and Tabernacle Hill. The field's Ice Springs event was an explosive eruption followed by lava flows that were Utah's most recent volcanic activity (1140–1440 AD). which overlapped the older flows of Pavant Butte. The Pleistocene-Holocene field has been an active tectonic area for approximately 2.7 million years. Within the past 1.5 million years, local volcanism has produced both rhyolitic and basaltic cones from near twenty-four vents from which lava escapes
Lava The very viscous nature of these lava cause them to not flow far from the vent, causing the lava to form a lava dome at the vent. When a dome forms on an inclined surface it can flow in short thick flows called coulées (dome flows). These flows often travel only a few kilometers from the vent. "Pillow lava" is the lava structure typically formed when lava emerges from an underwater volcanic vent or subglacial volcano or a lava flow enters the ocean. However, pillow lava can also form when lava is erupted beneath thick glacial ice. The viscous lava