Not only Mount Mazama, the decapitated volcano now marked by Crater Lake, but also a vast area of some 200,000 square miles around it was built up by repeated flows of lava. The walls of the lake reveal how the mountain was built up layer on layer of volcanic ash, lava, or wash of streams and glaciers. Sometimes the mountain was quiet; forests and flowery meadows covered its mass, while tumultuous streams slowly were washing away its bulk. At times it was the mother of snowfields and glaciers, at times it glowed with Vulcan’s fire. Later, through collapse or explosion, the top gave way to form the tremendous caldera whose layers have edges that give evidence of recent breaking increasingly to widen the opening.
Of chief scientific interest is an accounting for the presence of this lake of overwhelming depth and beauty on the very summit of an unusual mountain. What are the interesting geological and dynamics of the volcano? What connects the beauty of the scenic features and the story of their origin? Why is the water so blue and so pure? How does one account for the presence of freshness of this lake at all, since it has no inlet and no known outlet? What is the origin, nature, and distribution of the flora and fauna of the region and how have they been influenced by the signal environment in which they are found?
The amounts of rain and snow that are added year by year are adequate to account for the filing of the caldera to its present height with water. Seepage, lack of suspended material washed in by rain, and the nature of the basin are such that the lake possesses marvelous clarity and beauty. Only in a region in which all of these local peculiar qualities are concatenate could a Crater Lake be possible.
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