The Owens River at Long Valley follows the caldera's moat around the N and E sides of the resurgent dome and shows geomorphic evidence that its course has been modified by uplift of the dome over a period of time considerably longer than the last ten years. In most of its lower 15km, the river consists of two parallel meander belts separated by a nearly planar interfluvial surface (200-300m wide) that shows no trace of recent river activity. The two belts display essentially identical meander amplitude and wavelength, but are not the same age. The older meander belt, now carrying a small underfit stream, invariably lies closer to the dome than the main flow in the new outboard channel, and sits some 30-60 cm higher in elevation. The river apparently jumped into the new channel after some period of lateral tilting. Projection of the interfluvial surface to the axis of the some suggests that total uplift of 15 to 35 meters may have occurred. In the lowermost six km of its course, the Owens River floodplain shows as many as six identifiable meander belts of different age (some lying outboard and other lying well inboard of the modern channel) that appear to record events of subsidence as well as resurgence. Knowing the absolute ages of the river's occupancy of each of these meander belts may provide us an estimate of the timing of the resurgence and subsidence of the dome. We are particularly interested to know whether eruptive activity in the Mono Craters and Inyo Craters north of the caldera has been tied in a temporal way to the migratory behavior of the Owens River channel, and thus possible to the resurgence and subsidence of the crate floor.
