- Considering that it happened 43 years ago, a look around the Internet will astonish many readers with just how firmly James Earl “Jimmy” Carter’s presidency remains in Your Mileage May Vary territory. Conservatives declare that his watch was a mess, while liberals assert that he inherited a mess (Why does that sound familiar?): the huge Vietnam War deficit, an economy that for the first time ever suffered rampant inflation while stagnating, and a national post-Vietnam, post-Watergate funk which was described as a “malaise” – a word that is hung around his neck by conservative commentators (and The Simpsons) to this day, though Carter himself never actually used it. “Stagflation” was exacerbated by the 1979 oil crisis; long gas lines and high energy costs contributed to the national unhappiness. In an attempt to lead by example, the President lowered the thermostats in the White House and donned sweaters to keep warm instead – which became for many a hated symbol of the lifestyle sacrifices which they believed his policies had made necessary.
- Columbia River Basalt Group Stretches from Oregon to Idaho (usgs.gov)
The thick, layered lava flows of the CRBG erupted as flood basalts, which originate as some of the most highly effusive eruptions in the world. The CRBG sequence a classic example of flood basalt activity that erupted more than 350 lava flows from about 16.7 Ma to 5.5 Ma. The eruptions originated from a series of generally north-northwest-trending linear fissures, ranging from tens to hundreds of kilometers in length, located along the Washington/Oregon/Idaho border. The magma that fed these massive eruptions may have come from a plume-like upwelling from the mantle called a hot spot. Since the time of the CRBG eruptions, the North American plate has moved in a west-southwestwardly motion, and that hot spot is now believed to reside beneath Yellowstone volcano in northwest Wyoming.