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Welcome to Wyoming! I taught high school sciences at Farson Wy from 2010 to 2019. Class trips out to the sand dunes in those years. We never walked to the base as I recall, if was off limits. During my years at UW, one of my classes was paleomagnetism. I was responsible for placing the core samples drilled into the magnitomoter. Thanks for giving me a closer look at a formation I lived within eye shot but never touched.
"Fascinated" is right. What an interesting formation, I hope you can provide us with a follow-up as I know you have already dug into this to deepen your understanding. The wind abrasion striations - ventifacts - reminds me of the water induced striations we saw at the rim of Box Canyon in October. The common denominator is sands.
Yesterday I watched one of your videos from a couple of years ago that really helped me figure out some features in my area that I have been pondering for a while. Thanks!
Vielen Dank für das schöne Video.Ich interessiere mich sehr für Geologie, aber bin Laie. Vielen Dank, das ich soviele Eindrücke bekomme.Viele Grüße und pass auf Dich auf😊 Manchmal ist auch Zement interessant😂😂,bin gespannt was Du weiter berichtest
Thank you for taking time to check this out. Having grown up with this in my backyard I have always wanted to hear a good interpretation of how it got there. Have a great Thanksgiving Shawn!
Thanks once again for a good exploration. Wyoming has several of these types of formations. If you go towards Laramie they tend towards the kimberlite mineral assemblage. Both types can be diamond bearing as the ones to the east are. I would not be surprised if those cores you showed were from mineral prospectors. Did you get any photos of the Killpecker dunes nearby?
Great episode! Having a drone along for upper observation could be helpful. …and if there were diamonds there, the midnight mining company would have demolished the tusk by now!
Been here in this area before, simply amazing country... I love e exploring Wyoming, it is full of geology... Black rock a little to the south eastish yeilds peridot, Further west off of I 80 garnets, chromium diopside can be found...
I did a geology picture teacher's road trip website in college at Chadron State. I added the boars tusk to the website. I have a cool picture of the tusk, Kilpatrick dunes, and Wind Rivers in the backyard.
You are so lucky! To have that incredibly beautiful place to yourself! Thanks again for sharing. And thanks for the spellings you type in. Thanks also for your kind note you sent!
Tusks and Mars. Lunar landscape. With all the material around it from the base(?) up, it must have been a lot bigger around and taller. Lidar couldn't tell us how deep it extends below the plain. Thanks for another interesting geologic post.
I think the Leucite Hills have been (tentatively?) interpreted as related to the Rio Grande rift. I saw an abstract for a paper that was relating them to the volcanics in the Yampa River Valley in Colorado. I think there's alot of uncertainty as to how far north the Rio Grande Rift goes.
This reminds me of Monument Valley, which is far smaller in reality than in the movies ;-) They must have taken some turns around and around ;-) In detail it could be a different geology, but they also must be ex volcanoes. There is nothing else that could make these formations. The people gave them names like the right and left glove of Manitu I think ;-) And the tours start from a higher vantage point, almost from the top height of these features. So, this starting plateau must be a different geology than the eroded area. I am just curious about all of this, I am no expert, but I thank you for your videos!
Thanks for another informative video of a fascinating formation. I truly appreciate your efforts (and climbing skills) to provide such detail of places I'll never get to visit in person. I learn so much from each video; today's favorite was "ventifact".
Really interesting stuff Sean! Thanks! Just an FYI - use a back drop shadow on your light colored text, makes it easier to read against any background.
So interesting to hear a couple million years old called "young". I'm used to the standards of Iceland, where a couple hundred thousand years is considered old ;)
I'm enjoying your posts on Iceland and Wyoming. And learning a lot. My dad was a petroleum geologist from Wyoming, Are you familiar with the Vedauwoo area in SE Wyo? Our family Homestead is near there, has those wonderful granite outcroppings. One cliffside is about 800 feet in height. If you look on a detailed area map, look for Fortress Rock near the railroad tunnel. The tunnel goes across one corner of the homestead. It would be cool if you talked about these types of stone outcroppings.
Hi I am in Oregon now but most of the family is in No Colo. Close enough to the cabin for many family get togethers. My nephew is a 5th generation UW grad. The family goes a long way back@@richardkelso9478
Nothing odd about a volcano anywhere. There are 3 old ones in the state of Mississippi. 1 directly under Jackson MS, the state capital. There are C02 wells all over town. It’s the source of the cleanest C02 for industrial uses in the world. Another is under Midnight, MS. A little bitty podunk crossroad place out in the Mississippi River delta. The last was found offshore in the oil and gas fields. The rock tailings from a well being drilled identified its presence. In North central MS is s large Bentonite clay deposit which we know is decomposed ash deposits. It’s mined to make oil dry snd other clay products. It’s at Blue Mountain, MS so called as the ground dirt is blue. Also some in West TN. Along with the plutons and diatremes in SE Missouri associated with the Reelfoot Rift and New Madrid seismic zone. So volcanoes can be in odd places from a long time ago when the plates were located elsewhere far away.
Interesting, other than the Yellowstone hot spot i am not aware of very much volcanism in Wyoming. This is very strange and interesting. Reading more about Rocky mountain geology is on my wish list along with Appalachian geology. There are still very many extremely isolated areas in Wyoming. I have always followed my dad's wilderness rules about driving in Wyoming and parts of Montana. You can quickly be a long way from help and safety.
How did you get me interested in rock and mountains Shawn? How? At 70, suddenly I wish I'd been a studier of the Earth, like you! It's very cool to see this stuff. You're handsome and the Earth is even more so. 😂❤😂❤😂❤😂❤😂 That's what I call a win win. ❤🎉❤🎉❤🎉
,,,,,land o' lakes,wi....here for class ==..about the striations on the first Boulder you showed us..my take,,is,,,..are those bubbles in the lava ??,,the wind blown sand will be wavy,,these seem in line for them to be made by gas bubbles rising while molten,,imo!😮,..so cool to see this place,,,stark area,and those outstanding,....pyramid looking,.....I sure would walk to it if in that area,,,tnx..pat&family.
There is a famous hypabyssal Olivine Lamprolite deposit in Arkansas. Lamprolite, like Kimberlite, can be diamond bearing, and the one in Arkansas is. It is the only Dig your own diamond state park in the nation. Crater of Diamonds State Park is a fantastic place to visit whether you a dining in the plowed fields for diamonds or just surface scanning while walking.
Reminds me of dry cookie dough. Wyomings geology is cool. I read a article about the geology of Hart Mountain outside of Cody. Geology much different from the surrounding rocks. Basically thought to be a huge boulder courteous of a Yellowstone eruption, if I remember correctly. Ancient oceans and massive volcanic action made ole’Wyo amazing.
I don't know if it's just the camera but if you look at the rock, especially the from either kind of far away or that one rock with the wind erosion, and then look at the landscape from far away, it all looks like it has an interesting damascus pattern
This concretion looks like the mass was being moved through an area (via a lava flow?) and kept picking up more loose rock along the way. I'm not a geologist (very amateur), but have taken in other videos that geologists have made. So, I'm just putting together that which I've seen and learned. The material almost looks like it would totally crumble apart if you started chipped away at an area.
Why does the title make it sound like there weren't any known volcanos in Wyoming, when two of the most famous volcanos are there? One active and one long dead. Of course I mean the Yellowstone caldera and Devil's Tower. So Wyoming definitely has an extensive and varied volcanic history.
There is a rare geo feature in the Missouri Breaks National Monument in Montana called a Diatrime (sp?) supposedly where diamonds are formed, but not there. Its Massive.
This might help - it was published in Geosphere -Geosphere; April 2014; v. 10; no. 2; p. 374-400; doi:10.1130/GES00921.1; 16 fi gures; 4 tables. Received 26 February 2013 ♦ Revision received 9 October 2013 ♦ Accepted 22 January 2014 ♦ Published online 21 February 201
Nice. Just think what it took to get there. Sometimes you drive so far, it seems surreal when you finally get there. Thanks for all that analysis. Be careful out there, that stuff doesn’t look stable and it looks like you’re all by yourself and not sure if there is phone service out there. Don’t want to get pinned or covered up by sliding or falling debris. Interesting how there is no plant life except for what looked like a tumbleweed.
I have read that the Rio Grande Rift extends beyond the Mosquito/Sawatch ranges in the central Colorado Rockies and on into Wyoming. It seems a bit far to the west, but a remote possibility? I haven’t had the chance to sleuth my way north to see what I might be able to figure out. ( The rift comes up the West side of the Sangre de Cristos, there was a recent -17? MYA uplift at Poncha Pass near Salida, Colorado, and then follows the Arkansas River valley up to the Leadville, Colorado.) From there? So far, it’s just an interesting rumor…
Kimberly South Africa was also an ancient volcano area with kimberlite found in the area along with lamproite which was important for delivering diamonds. With this in mind, is it just possible this could be another diamond site?
Sometime in the past there was more Volcanism in the Rocky Mountain states. There are a handful of Volcanic Buttes near Raton, NM, Old Lava flow and Butte north of the White Sands in NM. A Super Volcano near Santa Fe and more Buttes near Taos NM…I know there is a failed Rift zone in New Mexico. I know Colorado has a Extinct Super Volcano in the San Juan Mountains. Shiprock is a Volcanic Butte as well near the 4 Corners I think.
I'm not sure if this is me or the video resolution creating it, but I see some "worm-like" motif in certain of the close-up but also at a different scale when you were at a distance. Is that an artefact of the video or me imagining it? If not that would give an additional fractal aspect to this volcano.
Agreed, Shawn- What the heck caused/allowed such a recent volcanic event in that area, the phreatic breccia shoved up through the crust? Almost gently-broken then re-glued?
Kimble light is deep rock compressed under immense pressures from crotons thick crust underbelly that produce diamond crystals so i would think its quite rare to seen on the surface the volcanic plug that's been left exposed due to weathering of the softer ground around it due to wind erosion it's so interesting to see this in a geological inactive area which just show's you that the earth is so dynamic in its crust altering phases and you can get volcanic activity just about anywhere at any if the conditions are right?
The world’s most productive diamond mine in terms of carat weight extracted (not value) is a lamproite pipe in the Kimberley area of Western Australia. Now closed, I believe.
Interesting I didn't know about volcanism this young in that part of Wyoming only volcano I knew of there was/is Yellowstone near the Idaho border. Lamproites those are produced by volcanic pipe eruptions from the upper mantle right? These eruptions are fascinating and from what I've read they are thought to involve some kind of chemical reaction that leads carbonate minerals to rapidly decompose into gases due to reactions with silica. Frankly the speed at which these eruptions must rise to the surface is terrifying Though in the context of Seismic tomography a number of these more recent volcanic pipes seem to be overlying subducted slabs so perhaps the carbonates that react down in the mantle are coming from a subducted slab? The late Jurassic and Cretaceous had Ruddist reefs. The silicate components probably came from the underside of North America either directly or indirectly with the heat and pressure serving to set off the reaction from the giant geological bottle rocket. The reason to suspect the silica had to have come from the underlying crust is that the type of rock you get Lamproite or Kimberlite appears to depend on the age of the continental crust in question Lamproites coming from crust which is Proterozoic or younger while Kimberlites seem to come from ancient Archaean age cratons.
Cool stuff. I have a question, I just read that they are lowering alert level for grindavik and that they are expected to be back for Christmas because the magma has solidified. That doesn't make sense to me, I don't understand how that magma tube can solidify so quickly. Even magma that has erupted is still hot for months. This magma is still fully insulated. I was wondering if you could explain to me exactly how they know the magma has solidified under town? Seems very premature to me
Thank you for the video. How do these lamproite lavas compare to the volcano in Africa's Mount Nyiragongo with it's ultra low Silica content and high Alkali metals. The lava's inclusions and clasts look like they are bits and pieces of everything that came up with it from way down deep.
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Welcome to Wyoming! I taught high school sciences at Farson Wy from 2010 to 2019. Class trips out to the sand dunes in those years. We never walked to the base as I recall, if was off limits.
During my years at UW, one of my classes was paleomagnetism. I was responsible for placing the core samples drilled into the magnitomoter.
Thanks for giving me a closer look at a formation I lived within eye shot but never touched.
Thank you Shawn, I knew you wouldn't let us down on Thanksgiving morning.
Thanks Dr. Willsey for an excellent video. 👍
Interesting! Would be a good candidate for a follow up episode with the microscope. Thanks for taking us along!
Another informative geological masterpiece Shawn, I will never look at a rock in the same way
"Fascinated" is right. What an interesting formation, I hope you can provide us with a follow-up as I know you have already dug into this to deepen your understanding. The wind abrasion striations - ventifacts - reminds me of the water induced striations we saw at the rim of Box Canyon in October. The common denominator is sands.
Cool interesting stuff. Thanks Shawn. Happy Turkey day to you and your family.
Yesterday I watched one of your videos from a couple of years ago that really helped me figure out some features in my area that I have been pondering for a while. Thanks!
Vielen Dank für das schöne Video.Ich interessiere mich sehr für Geologie, aber bin Laie.
Vielen Dank, das ich soviele Eindrücke bekomme.Viele Grüße und pass auf Dich auf😊
Manchmal ist auch Zement interessant😂😂,bin gespannt was Du weiter berichtest
Thank you for taking time to check this out. Having grown up with this in my backyard I have always wanted to hear a good interpretation of how it got there. Have a great Thanksgiving Shawn!
Thanks for this quiet moment before the pie baking begins ; ]
Thanks once again for a good exploration. Wyoming has several of these types of formations. If you go towards Laramie they tend towards the kimberlite mineral assemblage. Both types can be diamond bearing as the ones to the east are. I would not be surprised if those cores you showed were from mineral prospectors. Did you get any photos of the Killpecker dunes nearby?
No. It was a somewhat hurried trip across this part of the state.
Thanks for another very interesting episode. I would also love to see a follow up episode looking at those rocks more closely
Lived 10 years in SW Wyoming! So many awesome things to see and explore!
Great episode! Having a drone along for upper observation could be helpful. …and if there were diamonds there, the midnight mining company would have demolished the tusk by now!
Used drone for cover photo.
@@shawnwillsey Do the Wyoming authorities prohibit using the drone within, say 12 feet of the tusk its self to get a read on the minerals?
Super interesting. So many phenomena in one spot - well, interesting to us armchair followers. 😊
Quite the moonscape, thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Shawn. A very interesting monument indeed. Thanks for telling us about it.
Was there a smaller hotspot under that area?
You are right about the crazy wind in Wyoming!
What a great video, thank you
The wild and wonderful winds of Wyoming
That was great Shawn, I love Wyoming geology.
Been here in this area before, simply amazing country... I love e exploring Wyoming, it is full of geology... Black rock a little to the south eastish yeilds peridot, Further west off of I 80 garnets, chromium diopside can be found...
I've examined that very boulder. Fascinating location.
May be just another hotspot
" pimple" on the edge of the Great Basin and Range?
I took pictures of that last year but had no idea what it was. Thank you for solving it!
Really fascinating, thanks ! Great work and explanation!
I did a geology picture teacher's road trip website in college at Chadron State. I added the boars tusk to the website. I have a cool picture of the tusk, Kilpatrick dunes, and Wind Rivers in the backyard.
The colours are amazing. You wouldn't think so many different rocks could b4 ejected
great tour !
When you got up close was not what I expected. Thanks very much.
You are so lucky! To have that incredibly beautiful place to yourself! Thanks again for sharing. And thanks for the spellings you type in. Thanks also for your kind note you sent!
Shawn your videos are awesome. I have learned so much about rocks and the living earth from just watching.
Tusks and Mars. Lunar landscape.
With all the material around it from the base(?) up, it must have been a lot bigger around and taller. Lidar couldn't tell us how deep it extends below the plain.
Thanks for another interesting geologic post.
I think the Leucite Hills have been (tentatively?) interpreted as related to the Rio Grande rift. I saw an abstract for a paper that was relating them to the volcanics in the Yampa River Valley in Colorado. I think there's alot of uncertainty as to how far north the Rio Grande Rift goes.
Climbed this about 10 years ago, it's a fascinating place. Thanks for the awesome video.
Cool to have seen this way back when. Good intell. Thanks
Very nice
Great Video. The place does look like it's in the middle of nowhere! I'd like to see a cut and polished slab for a table top!
it's kind of interesting learning how to understand the things you are looking at...
Great presentation. Thanks.
Thanks!
Much appreciated. Thank you for your support.
This reminds me of Monument Valley, which is far smaller in reality than in the movies ;-)
They must have taken some turns around and around ;-)
In detail it could be a different geology, but they also must be ex volcanoes. There is nothing else that could make these formations.
The people gave them names like the right and left glove of Manitu I think ;-)
And the tours start from a higher vantage point, almost from the top height of these features. So, this starting plateau must be a different geology than the eroded area.
I am just curious about all of this, I am no expert, but I thank you for your videos!
I think Monument Valley is an eroded mesa and not of volcanic origin.
@@Cwra1smith you can see those "chimneys"...
@@richard--sMaybe you mean these? th-cam.com/video/qLl-epuyl0c/w-d-xo.html
@@shawnwillsey I thought, you might already have a video about it ;-)
I will look at it in no time, can't wait!
Beautiful country. Thanks for this close look at an unusual artifact.
Wyoming...where you can go out and find a thousand square miles all to yourself.
And that is exactly how we like it, my friend❤
Thank you so much for this wonderfully immediate and interesting video XXXX
That looks like Needle Rock in Crawford, CO!
Nice as always thanks
Thanks for another informative video of a fascinating formation. I truly appreciate your efforts (and climbing skills) to provide such detail of places I'll never get to visit in person. I learn so much from each video; today's favorite was "ventifact".
Really interesting stuff Sean! Thanks!
Just an FYI - use a back drop shadow on your light colored text, makes it easier to read against any background.
That orange zenolith was GOLD!!!
Mitchell and Bergman's Petrology of Lamproites is a great book.
cool video---unique volcanic rock----much different than we're used to
So interesting to hear a couple million years old called "young". I'm used to the standards of Iceland, where a couple hundred thousand years is considered old ;)
I have flown around these features in my plane, there are more and larger features to the east. I’m wondering if they are the same formation and age.
Loving your channel. Thanks for the Iceland info too.
Made the tusk my goal on a trip out west drove down from Atlantic City through the red desert, elk,wild horses , antelope, it’s a special place❤
I wonder if this outcrop is a byproduct of the YHS extreme geothermal residual that worked it's way up the perimeter of the hot spot. Thank you Shawn!
I don't think it is at all related to Yellowstone volcanism.
Part of the basin and range extension story?@@shawnwillsey
I'm enjoying your posts on Iceland and Wyoming. And learning a lot. My dad was a petroleum geologist from Wyoming, Are you familiar with the Vedauwoo area in SE Wyo? Our family Homestead is near there, has those wonderful granite outcroppings. One cliffside is about 800 feet in height. If you look on a detailed area map, look for Fortress Rock near the railroad tunnel. The tunnel goes across one corner of the homestead. It would be cool if you talked about these types of stone outcroppings.
Vedauwoo is one of my favorite places. Grew up in Cheyenne and my wife is from Laramie. Many great picnics and scrambling around there.
Hi I am in Oregon now but most of the family is in No Colo. Close enough to the cabin for many family get togethers. My nephew is a 5th generation UW grad. The family goes a long way back@@richardkelso9478
Nothing odd about a volcano anywhere. There are 3 old ones in the state of Mississippi. 1 directly under Jackson MS, the state capital. There are C02 wells all over town. It’s the source of the cleanest C02 for industrial uses in the world. Another is under Midnight, MS. A little bitty podunk crossroad place out in the Mississippi River delta. The last was found offshore in the oil and gas fields. The rock tailings from a well being drilled identified its presence. In North central MS is s large Bentonite clay deposit which we know is decomposed ash deposits. It’s mined to make oil dry snd other clay products. It’s at Blue Mountain, MS so called as the ground dirt is blue. Also some in West TN. Along with the plutons and diatremes in SE Missouri associated with the Reelfoot Rift and New Madrid seismic zone. So volcanoes can be in odd places from a long time ago when the plates were located elsewhere far away.
Btw I’m a bad typer on the phone. Happy Thanksgiving to all. 11/23/23.
Interesting, other than the Yellowstone hot spot i am not aware of very much volcanism in Wyoming. This is very strange and interesting. Reading more about Rocky mountain geology is on my wish list along with Appalachian geology. There are still very many extremely isolated areas in Wyoming. I have always followed my dad's wilderness rules about driving in Wyoming and parts of Montana. You can quickly be a long way from help and safety.
thank you
Thanks Shawn for your extra effort to hike to this location and explain the rocks found there .................. over 1K likes ........
I never realized Wyoming had volcanic activitiy. Thank you for the information
Thx Prof. ✌🏻 grt geo-ed adventure .
How did you get me interested in rock and mountains Shawn? How? At 70, suddenly I wish I'd been a studier of the Earth, like you! It's very cool to see this stuff. You're handsome and the Earth is even more so. 😂❤😂❤😂❤😂❤😂 That's what I call a win win. ❤🎉❤🎉❤🎉
,,,,,land o' lakes,wi....here for class ==..about the striations on the first Boulder you showed us..my take,,is,,,..are those bubbles in the lava ??,,the wind blown sand will be wavy,,these seem in line for them to be made by gas bubbles rising while molten,,imo!😮,..so cool to see this place,,,stark area,and those outstanding,....pyramid looking,.....I sure would walk to it if in that area,,,tnx..pat&family.
This was fun! Thanks so much!
There is a famous hypabyssal Olivine Lamprolite deposit in Arkansas. Lamprolite, like Kimberlite, can be diamond bearing, and the one in Arkansas is. It is the only Dig your own diamond state park in the nation. Crater of Diamonds State Park is a fantastic place to visit whether you a dining in the plowed fields for diamonds or just surface scanning while walking.
Curious, what would your analysis be of this tusk had it been formed under water?
Thank you. we did learn something which is always good! I would have thought it was a Mountain that is eroding, Now I know1
Sandstone and lamproite, now that's an unusual combination!
Reminds me of dry cookie dough. Wyomings geology is cool. I read a article about the geology of Hart Mountain outside of Cody. Geology much different from the surrounding rocks. Basically thought to be a huge boulder courteous of a Yellowstone eruption, if I remember correctly. Ancient oceans and massive volcanic action made ole’Wyo amazing.
As a compliment, love how boars tusk, puzzled you. Imagine, if you will, it is part of a massive, lahar
I don't know if it's just the camera but if you look at the rock, especially the from either kind of far away or that one rock with the wind erosion, and then look at the landscape from far away, it all looks like it has an interesting damascus pattern
This concretion looks like the mass was being moved through an area (via a lava flow?) and kept picking up more loose rock along the way. I'm not a geologist (very amateur), but have taken in other videos that geologists have made. So, I'm just putting together that which I've seen and learned. The material almost looks like it would totally crumble apart if you started chipped away at an area.
Why does the title make it sound like there weren't any known volcanos in Wyoming, when two of the most famous volcanos are there? One active and one long dead. Of course I mean the Yellowstone caldera and Devil's Tower. So Wyoming definitely has an extensive and varied volcanic history.
There is a rare geo feature in the Missouri Breaks National Monument in Montana called a Diatrime (sp?) supposedly where diamonds are formed, but not there. Its Massive.
It's a USGS paper from 2014: Cosca, Thompson et al.
Please send full ref if you can.
This might help - it was published in Geosphere -Geosphere; April 2014; v. 10; no. 2; p. 374-400; doi:10.1130/GES00921.1; 16 fi gures; 4 tables.
Received 26 February 2013 ♦ Revision received 9 October 2013 ♦ Accepted 22 January 2014 ♦ Published online 21 February 201
Nice. Just think what it took to get there. Sometimes you drive so far, it seems surreal when you finally get there.
Thanks for all that analysis. Be careful out there, that stuff doesn’t look stable and it looks like you’re all by yourself and not sure if there is phone service out there. Don’t want to get pinned or covered up by sliding or falling debris.
Interesting how there is no plant life except for what looked like a tumbleweed.
That's what they said about the Yellowstone Supervolcano, also in Wyoming.
Looks like a chunk of layered shale at 9:18.
I have read that the Rio Grande Rift extends beyond the Mosquito/Sawatch ranges in the central Colorado Rockies and on into Wyoming. It seems a bit far to the west, but a remote possibility? I haven’t had the chance to sleuth my way north to see what I might be able to figure out. ( The rift comes up the West side of the Sangre de Cristos, there was a recent -17? MYA uplift at Poncha Pass near Salida, Colorado, and then follows the Arkansas River valley up to the Leadville, Colorado.) From there? So far, it’s just an interesting rumor…
Do we know yellowstone hotspot didn't have intrusions outwards long distances? Seems reasonable.
Not likely.
Kimberly South Africa was also an ancient volcano area with kimberlite found in the area along with lamproite which was important for delivering diamonds. With this in mind, is it just possible this could be another diamond site?
Sometime in the past there was more Volcanism in the Rocky Mountain states. There are a handful of Volcanic Buttes near Raton, NM, Old Lava flow and Butte north of the White Sands in NM. A Super Volcano near Santa Fe and more Buttes near Taos NM…I know there is a failed Rift zone in New Mexico. I know Colorado has a Extinct Super Volcano in the San Juan Mountains. Shiprock is a Volcanic Butte as well near the 4 Corners I think.
I'm not sure if this is me or the video resolution creating it, but I see some "worm-like" motif in certain of the close-up but also at a different scale when you were at a distance. Is that an artefact of the video or me imagining it? If not that would give an additional fractal aspect to this volcano.
I believe there's a vent tube very similar to that one in Yampa Co At least that's what I've always believed
Agreed, Shawn- What the heck caused/allowed such a recent volcanic event in that area, the phreatic breccia shoved up through the crust? Almost gently-broken then re-glued?
There's shark teeth out there somewhere. The kimberlite pipes are over by Lonetree.
I think the continental margin went through this area back in the Paleocene!
Kimble light is deep rock compressed under immense pressures from crotons thick crust underbelly that produce diamond crystals so i would think its quite rare to seen on the surface the volcanic plug that's been left exposed due to weathering of the softer ground around it due to wind erosion it's so interesting to see this in a geological inactive area which just show's you that the earth is so dynamic in its crust altering phases and you can get volcanic activity just about anywhere at any if the conditions are right?
wandering hot spot
That is some really weird looking rock types. What a jumbled mess.
The world’s most productive diamond mine in terms of carat weight extracted (not value) is a lamproite pipe in the Kimberley area of Western Australia. Now closed, I believe.
Shawn, I am curious about the source of volcanic ash deposits in the S.D. badlands.
Interesting I didn't know about volcanism this young in that part of Wyoming only volcano I knew of there was/is Yellowstone near the Idaho border. Lamproites those are produced by volcanic pipe eruptions from the upper mantle right? These eruptions are fascinating and from what I've read they are thought to involve some kind of chemical reaction that leads carbonate minerals to rapidly decompose into gases due to reactions with silica. Frankly the speed at which these eruptions must rise to the surface is terrifying
Though in the context of Seismic tomography a number of these more recent volcanic pipes seem to be overlying subducted slabs so perhaps the carbonates that react down in the mantle are coming from a subducted slab? The late Jurassic and Cretaceous had Ruddist reefs. The silicate components probably came from the underside of North America either directly or indirectly with the heat and pressure serving to set off the reaction from the giant geological bottle rocket.
The reason to suspect the silica had to have come from the underlying crust is that the type of rock you get Lamproite or Kimberlite appears to depend on the age of the continental crust in question Lamproites coming from crust which is Proterozoic or younger while Kimberlites seem to come from ancient Archaean age cratons.
Cool stuff. I have a question, I just read that they are lowering alert level for grindavik and that they are expected to be back for Christmas because the magma has solidified. That doesn't make sense to me, I don't understand how that magma tube can solidify so quickly. Even magma that has erupted is still hot for months. This magma is still fully insulated. I was wondering if you could explain to me exactly how they know the magma has solidified under town? Seems very premature to me
Thank you for the video. How do these lamproite lavas compare to the volcano in Africa's Mount Nyiragongo with it's ultra low Silica content and high Alkali metals.
The lava's inclusions and clasts look like they are bits and pieces of everything that came up with it from way down deep.