Jackson Volcano

Jackson Volcano is an extinct volcano 2900 feet (884 meters) beneath the city of Jackson, Mississippi, under the Mississippi Coliseum. The uplifted terrain around the volcano forms the Jackson Dome, an area of dense rock clearly noticeable in local gravity measurements. E.W. Hilgard published his theory of an anticline beneath Jackson in 1860 due to his observations of surface strata.The dome contains relatively pure carbon dioxide which is used in oil production in Gulf Coast oil fields. The noble gas data suggests mantle origins with a date of 70 million years for the Jackson Dome intrusion. Geologists have evidence of repeated uplifts accompanied by dike intrusions and volcanic extrusions, erosion, and sedimentation with one coral reef having developed during a submergence. Much of the oil at the crest of the dome volatilized during a late uplift, but oil production wells numbered over a hundred in 1934.

Map of Jackson Volcano, Jackson, MS 39202, USA

Jackson Volcano is believed to have been extinct for at least 66 million years. A hypothesis states that the Jackson Volcano and related igneous activity in Mississippi were a result of the North America Plate's passage over the Bermuda hotspot 66 million years ago. Alternatively, the volcanism may have been part of a worldwide eruption driven by superplumes, similar to the conditions that created the Deccan Traps and the Siberian Traps.

The volcano is one of four inside cities in the United States, Diamond Head in Honolulu, Hawaii, Pilot Butte in Bend, Oregon, and Mount Tabor in Portland, Oregon being the others. The volcano was discovered in 1819.