They Lied to You About Wyoming’s Devils Tower

[jeff of pa]

it's Mashed Potatos
Every sign and postcard calls Devils Tower a volcano, and after more than a century of study geologists still cannot agree how it actually formed. In this one I go through the four competing theories, the sentence buried in a 1956 report showing the ground near the tower tilts the wrong way, and the Czech geologist whose work on a hill in Bohemia may finally explain it. The part that gets me is the seismometer two climbers left under a bucket on the summit in 2024, because it proved the tower flexes about seven times softer than its own stone, which means those columns are joints giving way, not one solid block. I will be honest, the old park guide that called it a bundle of matches turned out to be closer to the truth than anything on the signs. There are also thirty seven tons of rock still leaning on a painted edge on the south face, and nobody can tell you when it goes.

 

[blauer]

It's not a volcano, it's a volcanic plug, the remains of a volcano eroded and uplifted. It is similar to the Richat Structure in Africa. FYI, I've proved this experimentally in a science fair years ago.

 

[russau]

I'd assume that all of this information is /was taken into account when all these other educated people did their study . BUT I'm not A Geologist by any stretch of the imagination means and my best guess is to assume they know what they are talking about ! I'm NOT saying you are NOT correct because I just don't know one way or the other ! and all this is a interesting read !