This sign is located above the Lost Lake Viewpoint on the Big Obsidian Flow Trail.
Marker Name: People & Obsidian
Marker Text: Obsidian was money. It bought valuable goods such as fish, shells, and roots.
Tracing tools to their origins. As original as a fingerprint, each obsidian flow has its own chemical signature different from any other flow. Using laboratory techniques, artifacts are matched to their place of origin. Big Obsidian Flow artifacts have been found hundreds of miles away.
Soil layers and timemarkers. Archaeologists study soil layers to reveal traces of people who lived here thousands of years before us. By comparing dates of volcanic eruptions with artifacts in the layers, stories of past lives are pieced together.
On the cutting edge. In the 1970s, doctors performed open heart surgery on archaeologist Donald Crabtree. The incisions from the obsidian blades healed with hardly a trace, while the steel blades left huge scars. Obsidian blades can be shaped to a width of nearly one molecule.
Squeezing water from a rock - surviving on the moon. Scientists from NASA came to the Big Obsidian Flow in the mid 1960s and extracted drinking water from these rocks (which contains 0.2% water). They heated pumice and obsidian to very high temperatures, condensed the water vapor, and drank the water.
Newberry National Volcanic Monument. On November 5, 1990, the U.S. Congress established Newberry National Volcanic Monument in order to “preserve and protect for present and future generations Newberry’s remarkable geologic landforms.” Here, spectacular geology is at your fingertips.
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