Niter Ice Cave
The cave was formed during the middle Pleistocene Epoch
about 500,000 years ago when lava flowed out of a vent at Ice
Cave Knoll, located on the west side of State Highway 34.
This type of basalt volcano typically forms caves, more
appropriately called lava tubes, through which molten rock
(magma) feeds the distal regins of the growing lava flow,
and within which the lava remains fluid for great distances.
Niter Ice Cave is actually a small remnant of a lava-tube system
that was once perhaps several miles long. The lava flows are
now mostly covered with wind-blown soil termed loess by
geologists.
Ice Cave Knoll is a red-black cone made of solidified
cinders (scoria) and lava blobs (splatter). The cone produced
a series of mildly explosive eruptions. Light-colored, thinly
bedded layers in the cone indicate more explosive eruptive
episodes that occurred when water mixed with the magma
and spewed out like a pot boiling over. Numerous basalt
cinder cones are evident in the western U.S.A. Craters of the
Moon National Monument, 100 miles northwest of here, is the
most famous concentration.
Niter Ice Cave was important to the early settlers. In 1898,
John A. Dalton traveled to Blackfoot and filed on a homestead
of 160 acres. His family was delighted to find this ice cave
and would send their daughter Elsie for milk, butter, and
cream, stored in the cave. Mr. Dalton built the first ladder to
be used in entering the cave and referred to the storage area
as the window. On Independence Day, as a special treat, the
Daltons would get ice from the cave and make ice cream.
[Picture Captions]
Elsie Dalton Hubbard in her youth. (Vivian Mendenhall)
Terry S. Maley, “Field Geology Illustrated”
View of lava flow with lava tube or cave. A feature of the cave is ice. Water collects and is frozen by cold air passing through the cave. This freezing process
takes for about seven months, then gradually melts during the remainder of the year. (Terry S. Maley, “Field Geology Illustrated”)
