Twin Buttes

Twin Buttes is a pair of volcanic cinder cones in Shasta County, California, in the southern Cascades north of Lassen Peak. Formed in the late Pleistocene about 25,000 to 15,000 years ago, they stand near the center of the Bidwell Spring volcanic chain and are part of the larger Cascade Volcanic Arc created by subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate beneath North America. North and South Twin Buttes produced blocky basalt and dacite lava flows that spread about 3.9 square miles toward Burney Mountain, while cinder and ash drifted eastward. Though ancient and not active in the everyday sense, they remain monitored in the Lassen region and were rated low to very low threat as of 2014.

California · United States