Walther (crater)

The lunar crater Walther
Coordinates	33°00′S 0°42′E / 33.0°S 0.7°E / -33.0; 0.7Coordinates: 33°00′S 0°42′E / 33.0°S 0.7°E / -33.0; 0.7
Diameter	132 × 140 km
Depth	4.1 km
Colongitude	359° at sunrise
Eponym	Bernhard Walther

Walther is an ancient lunar impact crater located in the southern highland region of the Moon. It is joined along the western rim to the crater Deslandres. To the northeast is Aliacensis, and joined to the southeast rim is the irregular Nonius.

It should not be confused with Walter, a tiny crater near Diophantus.

The rim of Walther is complex, heavily eroded and incised by lesser impacts. The wall retains a generally circular form, but many of its features have been worn away and there is a slight protruding bulge in the western rim. The floor has been resurfaced after the original impact, leaving the southwestern half relatively smooth. In the northwest quadrant is an offset central peak that has been worn and impacted by several small craters.

Satellite craters[link]

By convention these features are identified on lunar maps by placing the letter on the side of the crater mid-point that is closest to Walther.

References[link]

'The Light Inside', site-specific installation of neon lights, gypsum board, plaster, and glass by James Turrell, 1999, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Satellite view of Roden Crater, the site of an earthwork in progress by James Turrell outside Flagstaff, Arizona.

'Space That Sees' Israel Museum, Jerusalem

James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist primarily concerned with light and space. Turrell was a MacArthur Fellow in 1984. Turrell is best known for his work in progress, Roden Crater, located outside Flagstaff, Arizona, where he is turning a natural cinder volcanic crater into a massive naked-eye observatory.

Background[link]

Turrell was born in Pasadena, California.^[1] His parents were Quakers. His father was an aeronautical engineer and educator. His mother trained as a medical doctor and later worked in the Peace Corps. Turrell obtained a pilot's licence when 16 years old. He subsequently flew supplies to remote mine sites and worked as an aerial cartographer. He received a BA degree from Pomona College in perceptual psychology in 1965 (including the study of the Ganzfeld effect) and also studied mathematics, geology and astronomy there. Turrell received a MA degree in art from Claremont Graduate School, University of California, Irvine in 1966.^[2]

Works[link]

Main article List of James Turrell artworks

In 1966, Turrell began experimenting with light in his Santa Monica studio, the Mendota Hotel, at a time when the so-called Light and Space group of artists in Los Angeles, including Robert Irwin and Doug Wheeler, was coming into prominence.^[3] By covering the windows and only allowing prescribed amounts of light from the street outside to come through the openings, Turrell created his first light projections.^[4] In Shallow Space Constructions (1968) he used screened partitions, allowing a radiant effusion of concealed light to create an artificially flattened effect within the given space.^[5] That same year, he participated in the Los Angeles County Museum’s Art and Technology Program, investigating perceptual phenomena with the artist Robert Irwin and psychologist Edward Wortz. In 1969, he made sky drawings with Sam Francis, using colored skywriting smoke and cloud-seeding materials.^[6]

Turrell is best known for his work in progress, Roden Crater. He acquired the crater in 1979.^[2] Located outside Flagstaff, Arizona, Turrell is turning this natural cinder volcanic crater into a massive naked-eye observatory, designed specifically for the viewing of celestial phenomena. His other works usually enclose the viewer in order to control their perception of light.

In the 1970s, Turrell began his series of "skyspaces" enclosed spaces open to the sky through an aperture in the roof. A Skyspace is an enclosed room large enough for roughly 15 people. Inside, the viewers sit on benches along the edge to view the sky through an opening in the roof. As a lifelong Quaker, Turrell designed the Live Oak Meeting House for the Society of Friends, with an opening or skyhole in the roof, wherein the notion of light takes on a decidedly religious connotation. (See PBS documentary). His work Meeting (1986) at P.S. 1, which consists of a square room with a rectangular opening cut directly into the ceiling, is a recreation of such a meeting house.^[7] Other Skyspaces include the Kielder Skyspace (2000) on Cat Cairn, England, and Second Wind (2005) in Vejer de la Frontera, Spain. Three Gems (2005) at the de Young Museum is Turrell's first Skyspace to adopt the stupa form.^[8] At Houghton Hall in Norfolk, the Marquess of Cholmondeley commissioned a folly to the east of the great house. Turrell's "Skyspace" presents itself from the exterior as an oak-clad building raised on stilts. From the inside of the structure, the viewer's point-of-view is focused upwards and inevitably lured into contemplating the sky as framed by the open roof.^[9]

Turrell is also known for his light tunnels and light projections that create shapes that seem to have mass and weight, though they are created with only light. His work Acton is a very popular exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. It consists of a room that appears to have a blank canvas on display, but the "canvas" is actually a rectangular hole in the wall, lit to look otherwise. Security guards are known to come up to unsuspecting visitors and say "Touch it! Touch it!"

Turrell's works defy the accelerated habits of people especially when looking at art. He feels that viewers spend so little time with the art that it makes it hard to appreciate.

Exhibitions[link]

Turrell was given his first solo show at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1967.^[6] Solo exhibitions have since included the Stedelijk Museum (1976); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1980); Israel Museum (1982); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1984); MAK, Vienna (1998–1999); Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh (2002–2003).

In October 2009, the “Wolfsburg Project,” Turrell’s largest exhibition in Germany to date opened and continued through October 2010. Amongst the works featured in the “Wolfsburg Project” is a "Ganzfeld," a light installations that cover 700 square meters in area and 12 meters in height.^[11] A major retrospective will open at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York in 2012, traveling to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among other venues.

• City of Anhirit
• Trace elements: Light into space
• Ghost Wedge
• Pleiades^[12]
• Heavy Water
• Afrum
• Into the Light
• Milk Run
• Unseen Blue
• Big Red
• Stuck Red and Stuck Blue

Museum[link]

In April 2009, The James Turrell Museum opened at the Bodega Colomé in the Province of Salta, in Argentina. It was designed by Turrell after Donald Hess, the owner of the Bodega and owner of a few of Turell's works, told him he wanted to dedicate a museum to his work. It contains 9 lights installation, including a skyspace (Unseen Blue), and some drawings and prints.^[13][14]

Collections[link]

Turrell's work is represented in numerous public collections including the Tate Modern, London; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the de Young Museum, San Francisco; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

In Japan, Turrell's works are exhibited at several large museums, including the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and a permanent installation at the Chichu Art Museum at Benesse Art-Site in Naoshima. At the latter, Turrell's work "Afrum - Pale Blue" (1968), "Open Field" (2000) and "Open Sky" (2004) are displayed. As part of the Naoshima town exhibitions, his Minamidera ("Southern Temple") was designed together with architect Tadao Ando. Also, in Tokamachi, Niigata, Turrell's "House of Light" has a view of the sunrise through the open roof that has been described as "the almost imperceptible change into deep blue was incredibly moving."^[15]

Awards[link]

Turrell has received numerous awards in the arts including The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1984.

Books[link]

• Eclipse. Documents The Elliptic Ecliptic and Arcus, two temporary installations accompanying the last total eclipse of the 20th century. (ISBN 3-7757-0898-7)
• The Other Horizon. An overview of Turrell's development from 1967 to 2001. (ISBN 3-7757-9062-4)
• James Turrell : the art of light and space by Craig Adcock. (ISBN 0-520-06728-2)
• James Turrell. Geometrie di luce. Roden Crater Project by Agostino De Rosa. (ISBN 0-520-06728-2)

Films[link]

• "Passageways" DVD published by Centre Pompidou Paris : a presentation of the Roden Crater project
• Art 21: James Turrell, Live Oak Friends Meeting house, PBS Documentary, Biography in text and online clip.

Interviews[link]

• works + conversations interview of James Turrell
• Article from ARK Finnish Architectural Review)
• EGG interview with James Turrell

References[link]

1. ^ Birthpace sometimes given as Los Angeles. Pasadena is given in a biographical note to the introductory leaflet for the 1993 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London, UK
2. ^ ^{a b} Biographical note to the introductory leaflet for the 1993 exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, South Bank, London, UK
3. ^ James Turrell Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas.
4. ^ James Turrell: Early Light Works, November 13, 2004 – February 12, 2005 William Griffin, Los Angeles.
5. ^ James Turrell MoMA Collection, New York.
6. ^ ^{a b} James Turrell Guggenheim Collection.
7. ^ James Turrell: Meeting, 1986 P.S.1, New York.
8. ^ James Turrell: Three Gems, 2005 de Young Museum, San Francisco.
9. ^ Donald, Caroline. "The new garden at Houghton Hall, King’s Lynn, Norfolk," The Times (London). May 11, 2008.
10. ^ Sarah Douglas (October 24, 2005), In Their Words: James Turrell and Andy Goldsworthy, ARTINFO, http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/1365/in-their-words-james-turrell-and-andy-goldsworthy/, retrieved 2008-04-21 
11. ^ Baker, Tamzin."James Turrell / The Wolfsburg Project." Modern Painters, November 2009.
12. ^ http://www.mattress.org/index.cfm?event=ShowArtist&eid=45&id=216&c=Permanent
13. ^ http://www.bodegacolome.com/
14. ^ http://hess-family.com/Press_Release_James_Turrell_Museum.pdf
15. ^ Rawlings, Ashley."Staying in James Turrel's House of Light." PingMag (Tokyo). Aug 21, 2006

Further reading[link]

• Nancy Marmer, "James Turrell: The Art of Deception," Art in America, May 1981, pp. 90–99.
• Wolfgang Metzger, "Optische Untersuchungen am Ganzfeld." Psychologische Forschung 13 (1930) : 6–29. (the first psychophysiological study with regard to Ganzfelds)

External links[link]

• Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBS series Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century – Season 1 (2001).
• [1]
• Knowing Light exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery
• Mattress Factory exhibition by James Turrell
• BBC article about James Turrell
• 43 Places: James Turrell^{[dead link]}
• Flickr: jamesturrell
• Roden Crater 1978
• Roden Crater on Google Maps
• Jonathan Jones writing in the Guardian about the Kielder Skyspace
• Virtual tour in the Roden Crater project by University IUAV of Venezia, Italy
• http://www.fundacionnmac.org/english/coleccion.php?id=117 [James Turrell at the NMAC Foundation_Cádiz_Spain]

Landsat image of Lake Toba, Indonesia, the largest volcanic crater lake in the world.

Lake Pinatubo, Philippines, formed after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Space shuttle imagery of Manicouagan Reservoir / Manicouagan impact crater, Canada, the largest impact crater lake in the world.

Heaven Lake, North Korea / China.

Mount Aso crater lake, Japan.

Taal volcano in Lake Taal, Philippines.

Irazú crater lake, Costa Rica.

Maderas crater lake (Ometepe Island), Nicaragua.

Crater Lake in Oregon, USA.

Cuicocha, Ecuador.

Niuafo'ou crater lake, Tonga.

Katmai crater lake, Alaska, USA.

Kelimutu crater lake, Indonesia.

Kerið crater lake, Iceland.

A crater lake is a lake that forms in a volcanic crater or caldera, such as a maar; less commonly and with lower association to the term a lake may form in an impact crater caused by a meteorite, or in an artificial explosion caused by humans. Sometimes lakes which form inside calderas are called caldera lakes, but often this distinction is not made. Crater lakes covering active (fumarolic) volcanic vents are sometimes known as volcanic lakes, and the water within them is often acidic, saturated with volcanic gases, and cloudy with a strong greenish color. Lakes located in dormant or extinct volcanoes tend to have fresh water, and the water clarity in such lakes can be exceptional due to the lack of inflowing streams and sediment.

Lava lakes, a rare phenomenon where a volcanic crater can sustainably contain a significant volume of molten lava, are discussed in a separate article.

Formation[link]

Volcanic crater lakes[link]

Crater lakes form as precipitation within the rim fills the created depression. The water level rises until an equilibrium is reached between the rate of incoming and outgoing water. Sources of water loss singly or together, may include evaporation, subsurface seepage, and in places, surface leakage or overflow when the lake level reaches the lowest point on its rim. At such a saddle location, the upper portion of the lake is contained only by its adjacent natural volcanic dam; continued leakage through or surface outflow across the dam can erode its included material, thus lowering lake level until a new equilibrium of water flow, erosion and rock resistance is established. If the volcanic dam portion erodes rapidly or fails catastrophically, the occurrence produces a breakout or outburst flood. With changes in environmental conditions over time, the occurrence of such floods is common to all natural dam types.

A well-known crater lake, which bears the same name as the geological feature, is Crater Lake in Oregon, USA. It is located in the caldera of Mount Mazama. It is the deepest lake in the United States with a depth of 594 m (1,949 ft). Crater Lake is fed solely by falling rain and snow, with no inflow or outflow at the surface, and hence is one of the clearest lakes in the world.^[1]

The highest volcano in the world, 6,893 metres (22,615 ft) Ojos del Salado in Chile, has a permanent crater lake about 100 metres (300 ft) in diameter at an elevation of 6,390 m (20,960 ft) on its eastern side.^[2] This is most likely the highest lake of any kind in the world.

Due to their unstable environment, some crater lakes exist only intermittently. Caldera lakes in contrast can be quite large and long-lasting; for instance, Lake Toba (Indonesia) formed after its eruption around 70,000 years ago and has an area of over 1,000 square kilometres.

While many crater lakes are picturesque, they can also be deadly. Gas discharges from Lake Nyos (Cameroon) suffocated 1,800 people in 1986, and crater lakes such as Mount Ruapehu's (New Zealand) often contribute to destructive lahars.

Certain bodies of water, although their formation is directly related to volcanic activity, are not usually referred to as crater lakes, including:

• Lakes created by volcanic dams due to lava flowing outside of the volcanic edifice/caldera (such as Garibaldi Lake in Canada, Fuji Five Lakes in Japan),
• Closed atoll lagoons (such as Clipperton lagoon), whose formation process also implies subsequent biogeomorphologic processes,
• Ponds encountered at the bottom of waterfalls occuring in volcanic canyons in a volcanic context but not within a volcanic edifice/caldera (such as Trou de Fer on Réunion Island).

Other kinds of crater lakes[link]

Lakes can also fill impact craters, but these are not usually referred to as crater lakes except in a few isolated cases. Example of such impact crater lakes include Manicouagan in Canada, Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana and Siljan in Sweden.

More rarely they can also fill craters caused by artificial explosions, such as the radioactive Lake Chagan in Kazakhstan.

Other geological features that can be mistaken for a crater lake[link]

Some geomorphological features, when filled with water, can sometimes be confused with crater lakes:

• Pingos (soil-covered ice mounts) whose summital part has collapsed,^[3]
• Sinkholes (karstic holes, also called cenotes), such as Otjikoto Lake in Namibia.

Some circular open-pit mines can also present a similar appearance, such as Big Hole in Kimberley, South Africa, a diamond mine (in a kimberlite pipe) where water has accumulated in the artificially created depression.

List of volcanic crater lakes[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

List of meteor crater lakes[link]

List of artificial crater lakes[link]

List of crater lakes of unclear origin[link]

See also[link]

• Lava lake
• Volcanic crater
• Caldera
• Types of volcanic eruptions
• Maar
• Atoll
• Impact crater

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Crater lakes

Further reading[link]

• Delmelle, Pierre; Bernard, Alain (2000). "Volcanic Lakes". In Sigurdsson, Haraldur. Encyclopedia of Volcanoes. San Diego: Academic Press. 1999. pp. 877–895. ISBN 0-12-643140-X 
• Varekamp, Johan C.; Rowe, Gary L. , Jr. (eds.) (2000). "Crater Lakes". Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 97 (1–4): pp. 1–508. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PublicationURL&_tockey=%23TOC%235962%232000%23999029998%23197405%23FLA%23&_cdi=5962&_pubType=J&view=c&_auth=y&_acct=C000029718&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=582538&md5=1911beba4cc7a30b37f932dac1925ca9.  (entire volume about crater lakes)
• Pasternack, G. B.; Varekamp, J. C. (1997). "Volcanic lake systematics I. Physical constraints". Bulletin of Volcanology 58 (7): pp. 526–538. http://www.springerlink.com/content/fe99wvduu106pwpu/?p=bd7fb6cabac34210ace7b7edcfd9f13a&pi=2. 
• Kusakabe, Minoru (ed.) (1994). "Geochemistry of Crater Lakes". Geochemical Journal 28 (3): pp. 137–306. http://www.terrapub.co.jp/journals/GJ/frame/28.html.  (entire issue about chemistry of crater lakes)

External links[link]

• IAVCEI Commission of Volcanic Lakes
• IAVCEI Commission of Volcanic Lakes: Some fundamentals about Crater Lakes
• The Science of Volcanic Lakes
• Volcanic Lakes of the World
• USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: Water on volcanoes: heavy rain and crater lakes
• USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory: Volcanic Lakes
• The Science of Volcanic Lakes, Greg Pasternack, U. California Davis
• Crater Lake National Park documentation in Building Oregon: Architecture of Oregon & the Pacific Northwest archive