Imagine you’re standing on the Great Plains. All around you are prairies and grasslands; the brown and green grass swaying gently in the breeze. Rolling hills covered in vegetation dot the horizon. As you turn towards the northwest, you see it … a majestic, nearly vertical igneous rock formation standing approximately 850 feet tall and over 5,000 feet above sea level. Welcome to our nation’s very first national monument, Devils Tower, located in the northwestern section of the Black Hills-Bear Lodge Mountains in Wyoming,
Even more amazing than the unique formation we see today, is the history behind how it was formed. Approximately 500 million years ago, thick layers of sedimentary rocks (made up of mud, sand and other sediments) were deposited in what was once a shallow sea. There are three different hypotheses concerning exactly HOW the tower itself formed. All three theories agree that the original formation was still approximately 1.5 miles underground when it was formed and that it was initially shaped by magma that rose into older sedimentary rock and then cooled. That being said, the scientific theories do vary on a variety of points. One suggests that Devil’s Tower might be an old, deformed igneous rock that took shape as magma hardened above a magma feeder pipe, causing it to bulge. Another theory states that Devil’s Tower could be all that’s left of the plumbing system of an ancient volcano. However, very little evidence has been found thus far to support this theory. Finally, the simplest scientific theory is that the tower is actually the shaft of a volcano that never reached the Earth’s surface.
Approximately 50 million years ago, at the end of the mountain building process that formed the Rocky Mountains; a magma-f...
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... when saline water in the area evaporated, leaving behind the white, crusty material which is now used to make drywall.
Although it was also formed during the Jurassic period, the Sundance formation is the third and youngest sediment layer in the area. The mudstone and sandstone sediments in the Sundance formation were originally formed in the shallow, ancient Sundance Sea. This sea once washed over an area of submerged terrain that eventually became Devils Tower and the Rocky Mountains we know today.
Although evidence of the dinosaurs was NOT found around the Spearfish Formation, scientists have discovered dinosaur tracks just west of the Gypsum Springs and Sundance Formations. Other fossils have also been discovered west of the Sundance Formation including oyster shells and squid. However, geologists have yet to find any of these fossils with the monument itself.
The Don Valley Brickwork consists of many different layers of geological deposits, allowing us to observe and have a better understanding of how the sediments we see today are formed. The most bottom layer in the Brickworks are from the Georgian Bay Formation, and consists of grey- shale bedrocks. Fossils are often found in this layer and it is estimated that this deposit of sediments is around 445 million years old. Above the bedrocks is a thin layer of grey clay sand and gavels left behind by the Illinoian Glacier. This layer is called the York Till and occurred around 135,000 years ago. The next layer consists of a sandy deposit called the Don Formation, which is formed by the Sangamonian Interglacial Stage. Many plant and animal fossils are found in this layer due to warmer climate around 120,000 years ago. Above it lies the Scarborough Formation, which consist of clay and sand. This sediment likely occurred 115 - 106,000 years ago. The next layer above is the Poetry Road Formation, and consist of sand and gravel. This layer is likely formed during the early Wisconsin glacial substage around 106- 75,000 years ago. Higher is the Sunnybrook Drift which was formed 60 – 75,000 years ago. And on the surface, is the Halton Till, which was left behind by the final push of the Wisconsin Glacier.
...e morphed it into the quartzite that is seen surrounding the butte (4). Rocks that undergo this process are called metamorphic rock, which is the same as the rock seen years ago by dinosaurs and other extinct creatures. The quartzite rocks were formerly seafloor sediment that was forced upwards, and then surrounded by lava basalt flows. Once erupted through fissures and floods through out most of the area, lava flow eventually created enough basalt to form a thickness of about 1.8 kilometers (1). All of this basalt flow eventually led to the covering of most mountains, leaving the buttes uncovered. The igneous lava flows and loess is reasons that the Palouse consists of such sprawling hills, and rich soil for farming (2). In result of the lava flows, the Precambrian rock Quartzite was formed. And lastly covered by the glacial loess, which were carried by the wind.
Monument 14 is an exciting, compelling novel, written by Emmy Laybourne with 352 pages that tells the story of 14 kids that are living through what seems to be the apocalypse. It was published by Square Fish Inc. on May 28, 2013 and it is a realistic fiction novel. I chose to read this book because the informant at the bookstore told me that it was popular and had a great story to it, which she described to me briefly. I hoped to have a book that put me in a situation that would not normally happen with lots of action, adventure, and unpredictability.
Miesse, Willian C. "Mount Shasta Geology and History." USGS: Volcano Hazards Program - Mount Shasta Geology and History. College of the Siskiyous Library, n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
"Mechanics of Graben Evolution in Canyonlands National Park, Utah." Geological Society of America Bulletin. Web. 05 Dec. 2011. .
At the end of the last ice age windblown silt covered the lava and basalt deposits. This silt would go on to create the fertile rolling hills of the Palouse. This soil is more than a hundred feet deep in places. Soon, enough time passed for vegetation to take place and more soil started to form.1 The lava flows would end up damming streams flowing from the mountains; in turn forming the current lakes of the region. Layered between the flows of basalt are sand and gravel deposits that washed down from mountains.1
Later after the sea finally retreated occurred volcanic activity. Mountains rose through laccoliths, which also resemble volcanoes. These laccoliths differ in that they do not erupt. They shifted layers of rock upward in the shape of a dome. This specific piece of geologic morphology occurred at the end of the Cretaceous time. This marked the beginning of the Laramide Orogeny, which was a well-known period of mountain formation in western North America.
Froede, Carl R. “Stone Mountain Georgia: A Creation Geologist's Perspective.” CRS Quartely 31, no. 4 (March 1995): 6.
Zig-zag, back and forth, down, down, down, Jonathon, Dad, and I went into a mysterious new world. Now that I have gone into this hot, dry canyon surrounded by monstrous hoodoos, I have seen what it is really like to leave the small town of Seymour, and emerge into the greatness of this world. I have now seen several other National Parks on one of the most renowned places on earth for mysterious creations, the Colorado Plateau. Of all the beautiful places on it, even the Grand Canyon, I have found my favorite one. Bryce Canyon National Park. I thought it was amazing, because it was the most diverse to anything I have ever seen before. We hiked down into it and I felt like I was surrounded by skyscrapers. We trekked around a little, but we didn’t
The sharp differences in elevation between the Badwater Basin and the surrounding mountains that include the highest point in the continental US (Mt. Whitney at 14,494 feet) stand as a representation of the regions violent tectonic past. The mountains themselves are considered fault block mountain ranges meaning that they were formed when blocks of rocks were squeezed through the Earth's crust along parallel faults or were loosened from the crust when it separated at a fault. In the valley, both of these methods not only were the cause of the current mountains formation less than four million years ago, but also are causing the mountains to be uplifted while the valley floor drops even further. This phenomenon is one of the reasons why the lowest and highest points in the continental...
The canyon is a part of what is now the Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, an area of land first acquired through the Louisiana Purchase. In this painting, the observer may notice many features which stand out. In the background, the image depicts a large, rocky ravine, occupied by a river and rows of trees. The river leads to a large orb of light, presumably stemming from a fire. In the foreground, two men are seen standing on a cliff above the ravine, presumably in awe at the wondrous land they have just discovered in the distance. Behind the men is an untraveled area of
Eckel, Edwin B., ed. Nevada Test Site. Memoir 110 Boulder, CO: The Geological Society of America, 1968
United States Geologic Survey. USGS: Your Source for Science You Can Use. Ed. Marcia McNutt. The United States Department of the Interior, 2000. Web. 20 June 2010. .
inferred for the reservoir (4). The magma ascent to the surface occurred through a conduit of possibly 70 to 100 m in diameter (5). A thermal model predicts that such a reservoir should contain a core of partially molten magma (6) that can be detected by high-resolution seismic tomography.