Photograph by B. Edwards
Photograph by B. Edwards
Ruby Mountain, viewed from the east in the photograph above, is located
25 km east of the town of Atlin, in northwestern British Columbia, and
900 km east of Anchorage, Alaska. Ruby Mountain volcano is a small stratovolcano
comprising a series of lava flows, airfall deposits, and volcanic breccia.
It probably formed in the last 1 million years, with the most recent volcanic
activity predating the last glaciation in the area (Edwards et. al., 1996).
The volcano is part of the northern Cordilleran volcanic province (Edwards
& Russell 2000), which includes the nearby volcanoes at Cracker
Creek and Volcanic Creek.
Photograph by B. Edwards
The summit of Ruby Mountain is a partially preserved crater made up
of volcanic bombs and scoria. The northern slopes of the volcano
show evidence for hosting glaciers in the past. Even today, a small
rock glacier resides on the northwest face of the mountain. A recent
collapse of the east side of Ruby Mountain resulted in a large landslide,
dissecting this portion of the volcano. The resulting scarp displays
a cross-section of the interior structure of the volcano. Blocks of volcanic
material (scoria) embedded in grey landslide material are shown above.
-Ben Edwards, Andy McCarthy, and Anna Bye, Grand Valley State University, MI
Aitken, J.D. 1959. Atlin, British Columbia. Geological Survey of Canada Memoir 307, 89 p.
Bye, A.., Edwards, B., 2000. Preliminary field mapping and petrographic
analysis of Ruby Mountain
volcano, northwestern British Columbia, Canada. Fifth annual
Michigan Space Grant Consortium meeting.
Abstract, p. 17.
Edwards, B.R. & Russell, J.K. 2000. The distribution, nature and
origin of Neogene-Quaternary magmatism
in the Northern Cordilleran Volcanic Province, northern Canadian Cordillera.
Geological Society of America Bulletin, v. 112, no. 8, 1280-1295.
Edwards, B.R., Hamilton, T.S., Nicholls, J., Stout, M.Z., Russell, J.K.,
& Simpson, K. 1996.
Late Tertiary to Quaternary volcanism in the Atlin area , northwestern
British Columbia; in
Current Research, Part A; GSC Paper 96-1A, 29-36.
Levson, V.M. 1992. Quaternary geology of the Atlin area (104N/11W, 12E).
In Geological Fieldwork
1992: British Columbia Ministry of Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources
Paper 1992-1, p. 375-390.
