But it is necessary also to confess that the power of nature is so ample and vast, and these principles so simple and general, that I have hardly observed a single particular effect which I cannot at once recognise as capable of being deduced in many different modes from the principles, and that my greatest difficulty usually is to discover in which of these modes the effect is dependent upon them; for out of this difficulty I cannot otherwise extricate myself than by again seeking certain experiments, which may be such that their result is not the same, if it is in the one of these modes that we must explain it, as it would be if it were to be explained in the other.- Field Trip Guide to the Geologic Development of the Pasco Basin, South-Central Washington (PDF) (nwgs.org)
Flood basalt volcanism occurred in the Pacific Northwest, USA, between 17.5 and 6 Ma when over 300 basaltic lavas of the Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG) were erupted from fissures in eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and western Idaho (Fig. 1) (Swanson et al., 1979a). These flood basalts cover over 200,000 km2 of the Pacific Northwest and have an estimated volume of more than 234,000 km3 (Camp et al., 2003). Concurrent with these massive basalt eruptions was the folding and faulting of the basalt in the western part of the Columbia Basin and development of generally east-west trending anticlinal ridges and synclinal valleys collectively known as the Yakima Fold Belt
- Experiment (Wikipedia)
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies.