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I called it! Thought there would be an underlying limestone layer with a cave. Okay, it's pretty obvious even to someone with no geology like me, but I take what I can to feel good about myself! lol
With experience in Tennessee limestone caves my first question was: How extensive is the cave network? Are there other open points of the network? Does the formation support Mexican freetail bats?
I’m thinking that with the depth of limestone of 600 feet, there would be no access to the cave proper but bats would likely be found around and in the collapsed part.
There are similar karst features along the Cumberland Plateau from Kentucky to Georgia , where large sinkholes have formed in the sandstone cap rock due to collapse of caves in the underlying limestones . Like the Devils Kitchen, they almost never have penetrable passages at the bottom. The great thing about karst , however , is it is a living landform . What was known for decades as a barren hillside , may suddenly sport a cave entrance tomorrow or next week . Unfortunately , the opposite is also true . So it pays to constantly recheck and keep your eyes open . Erosion is driven by gravity , and gravity is always on .
Hey Shawn, thanks for covering this site. I regularly visit this in my role as a tour guide for a local jeep tour company, and I look forward to sharing your information with the people I lead here.
There are a lot of sink holes around northern Arizona, essentially anywhere there is a limestone substructure fairly close to the surface. Lots and lots of them on the Kaibab Plateau north of the Grand Canyon but we used to see them south of the canyon and in the Flagstaff area where I grew up. Most of them are fairly small but some, especially north of the canyon are much larger than this one.
I love seeing anything from the western us. Everything is so much less disturbed than the eastern half of the country. And so much natural beauty to explore.
Great video, Shawn. This feature reminds me of a somewhat similar feature that has always fascinated me. It's at 36.676 north, 111.683 west in northern Arizona near the Colorado River.
Hello Shawn, You're up early this morning! Beautiful Sedona red rocks -- Ancestral Rocky Mountain runoff. Feel the healing power of that vortex energy! I could use some of that this morning. 🧙🏽♂️
Thank you…makes me realize how lucky many of us are to be alive today, and in relative safety and comfort, knowing experts like geologists can detect unsafe environments. I always wondered how the ancient Puebloans dealt with the dangers of living in the cliffs below overhanging rocks, and I try to imagine how they experienced sudden collapses or boulders falling without warning. How precarious their lives must have been.
Making a loop out of Soldier's Pass and Brin Mesa up there is my favourite Sedona hike, passed the sinkhole many times and knew the basics so this was cool to watch and learn a bit more.
Can't believe I have never seen anyone else bother to stop in to the Sedona red Rock country and Breakdown the geological artifacts found there, of course it would be you Shawn. The place is so beautiful and sadly it's not really experienced as much because it is not cheap to even visit the place nonetheless live there. Which honestly is probably the best way to keep it beautiful, unlike So. Cal. and its expansive monoculture of geological prowess called "Concrete" from the coast all the way to the Mojave desert😂, lol.
Nice job! I immediately thought it was a sink hole, but your explanation of how it formed was excellent and at a very appropriate level for this venue - mad props. Sedona is an awesome area, and brother if I could afford it it would be in my top 3 for retirement destinations.
If you're in Arizona maybe you could give us your take on Tonto Natural Bridge, the world's largest travertine bridge .if I'm not mistaken., it's over north of Payson in Mogollon Rim country. It would probably get more attention if there was no Grand Canyon.
I remember standing at the edge of this thing! Your video doesn’t do its size justice but your explanation is spot on :) My in-laws lived around the corner from Soldiers Pass Trailhead over on Rim Shadows Cir. Stunning area to be in!
I mounted a month long expedition to the latitude/long you provided 33.88668 -111.78251 and did not find any hole. It was quite desolate and many of my support team did not survive. Eventually had to abandon the expedition when water ran out. Upon returning home, I googled Devil's Kitchen" in Google Earth found out it was at 34.88658 -111.78251. At that latitude, the Earth radius (if you beleive in the conspiracy the Earth is an obloid sphere) is 6371.181km which means that purposefully sending me 1° off means I was over 111.19km off from where you were. Many men died because of that typo in your video 🙂
Scenes like this reminds me of some of my Minecraft locations. I have been looking at the game differently since watching you and Geologyhub and learning about the different kinds if rock. I wish I had made it to Sodona when I was stationed in NM.
When it’s a little warmer, consider rappelling down The Jug in Salome Creek (central AZ) with a camera. And the nearby view of the Mazatzal Mountains from the top of Aztec Peak (when drivable) is also spectacular. Just don’t sample the prospects around Aztec Peak (uranium and asbestos)😊.
Thank you, Check out Dante's descent, north west of Ashfork. It has been said that it is a vent hole for fresh air at the Grand canyon Caverns, 30 miles west.
It would be really neat to actually excavate the bottom layers to see if there any remains, pottery, etc and to create a possible time line for the multiple collapse and exposure events.
Since it's sandstone/sedimentary, I figure it's some kind of weird sinkhole? Edit: Hey I was right. I assumed there was some limestone somewhere lol...
Thank to you Shawn, Nick and others, I'm better at recognizing Geologic events like this one 😊. opened up a whole new world for me. ( I guessed right this time😅)
Wow, that's cool and sort of scary at the same time. I always loved seeing the different landscapes when I traveled west from North Central Texas. Every trip was by a different highway and nothing was the same. Now in my twilight years these videos remind me of all of nature's beauty I have seen. Reminds me of even mu alaska trip. Thanks
There is another YT person, who did an aerial view of a cave-in in the AZ high desert region.. Little scrub brush on the high plateau, nothing around for any hills or mountains, then whoof ! there is a cave-in and no roads going in, as you would expect some mine quarry. Just a singular cave-in area. Amazing to then look at its geology and figure out its cave-in specifics.
i wonder, has anyone ever drilled any boreholes around this area to determine if there is more of a cave system hidden and also slowly collapsing. you never know, this could be the birth of a new grand canyon making event. maybe even a new understanding of how it initially formed.
Wish I could send you photos. Got similar structures seen right off I 40 in Santa Rosa, NM. Pecos River passes through there, as well as cool structures like the Blue Hole.
I wonder how many more upwardly mobile caves there are in this area. From what I understand, where there is a sinkhole, there are usually many others nearby.
Your diagrams show the water table in the supai limestone layer. Below is the Redwall limestone where the cave initially formed. Right? would the redwall ls layer be dry with water table above it, and the location of the Devil's kidchen unique in that cracks allow water to infilrandw down to the redwall ls and disolved it to create the initial cave? Curious on why it happened at that specific spot instead of a much larger sinkhole or multiple smaller sink holes in the vicinity that would have had similar rock layers? Or is thsi a case of a underground creek that had a narrow area where it passed over those rocks and thus limited scope of where it would disolve the limestone to create caves?
You should run a gain on your final edit. Your final volume is quite low. Not sure if you're aware. I have my volume on full blast and it still is only average.
It looked like a sinkhole but I have never seen one in sandstone before. Knowing the process I could not figure out how sandstone could dissolve to form a sinkhole. Having lived in Florida for many years I am very familiar with limestone sink holes.
You have to take us to a meteor crater, then we can ask it’s a meteor crater or not. But in this case it’s pretty obvious it’s a cavitation sinkhole because of the sheer surface and undercuts indicate an ongoing subterranean process. But the question then becomes how you get limestone under metal rich mudstone formations and there we need to discuss ages and sources of silt. Let’s crash something big into Earth and make some meteor formations😎 What could go wrong?
Is this the only one in the area? I would expect a number of them to be nearby, like the cenotes in Mexico. Are there other voids underground that might collapse to make more sinkholes?
Right at the start of the video my first thought is undermining by erosion of the ground below the surface leading to collapse of the surface rock into the cavity below. Now let's see if I was right..... End of video edit: Yup - spot on.
The coordinates in the video are not correct, it is at 34N instead of 33N... (I entered them in google earth to have a look at the photo but I got placed in a completely different place...)
Is that a new logo as your profile pic? It looks cool!! reminds me of the toadstools in kanab! This is not meant to be negative or stir anything up, but if you're upgrading your channel, it would be awesome to add a little bit of music to the first 15 seconds. I always go to adjust my volume and by the time you began talking I either have it way too quiet or way too loud. In all honesty, not trying to be rude at all :)
Thanks, for sharing, Shawn! I thought, this must be a zinkhole and I was right! So I have learned a little! I enjoy your way of teaching!! Greetings from Cailie from Denmark 🇩🇰
Then, over time, the unsupported "roof" of the cave begins to fall, resulting in the void working its way toward the surface. (Over a long period of time.)
The top formation is just impersonating Schnebley Hill. It's real name is the Dewey formation. Wait..... is this a coded message? Shawn is going to rename this channel SCHOOL OF ROCK ?
Please LIKE and SUBSCRIBE. I also appreciate your continual support of these geology education videos. To do so, click on the three little dots (next to download button above) then click "Thanks" or by going here: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EWUSLG3GBS5W8 Or: www.buymeacoffee.com/shawnwillsey
Wonderful explanation. I never would have figured it out. Thanks!
I didn't realize this feature was so recent. What a great lesson!
Thank you for demonstrating how a geologic structure formed over millions of years can change quickly, I am always concerned how Rocks Move.
Shawn standing on edge of collapsed sinkhole while his life insurance agent attempts to get him on the phone....
I called it! Thought there would be an underlying limestone layer with a cave.
Okay, it's pretty obvious even to someone with no geology like me, but I take what I can to feel good about myself! lol
I got it too within seconds.
Cool, thank you Shawn. It's always fun to see your videos pop up!
With experience in Tennessee limestone caves my first question was: How extensive is the cave network? Are there other open points of the network? Does the formation support Mexican freetail bats?
I’m thinking that with the depth of limestone of 600 feet, there would be no access to the cave proper but bats would likely be found around and in the collapsed part.
There are similar karst features along the Cumberland Plateau from Kentucky to Georgia , where large sinkholes have formed in the sandstone cap rock due to collapse of caves in the underlying limestones .
Like the Devils Kitchen, they almost never have penetrable passages at the bottom.
The great thing about karst , however , is it is a living landform .
What was known for decades as a barren hillside , may suddenly sport a cave entrance tomorrow or next week .
Unfortunately , the opposite is also true .
So it pays to constantly recheck and keep your eyes open .
Erosion is driven by gravity , and gravity is always on .
Hey Shawn, thanks for covering this site. I regularly visit this in my role as a tour guide for a local jeep tour company, and I look forward to sharing your information with the people I lead here.
Thanks for that. I am suffering from Icelandic volcano withdrawal symptoms at the moment so this is great.
Popocatapetl looks great now
There are a lot of sink holes around northern Arizona, essentially anywhere there is a limestone substructure fairly close to the surface. Lots and lots of them on the Kaibab Plateau north of the Grand Canyon but we used to see them south of the canyon and in the Flagstaff area where I grew up. Most of them are fairly small but some, especially north of the canyon are much larger than this one.
Cool explanation of what went on here! Beautiful area!
Appreciate the field lesson.!
Thank you Professor
So close to our home. Very excited that you covered it.
Wonderful explanation about why this even exists way out west in sandstone country. Thank you Shawn.
I love seeing anything from the western us. Everything is so much less disturbed than the eastern half of the country. And so much natural beauty to explore.
Thank you Shawn!
Was in Sedona in August. I didn't know about this. Very nice video!
Great video, Shawn. This feature reminds me of a somewhat similar feature that has always fascinated me. It's at 36.676 north, 111.683 west in northern Arizona near the Colorado River.
Very interesting. Thank you for taking the time to explain it.
Hello Shawn, You're up early this morning! Beautiful Sedona red rocks -- Ancestral Rocky Mountain runoff. Feel the healing power of that vortex energy! I could use some of that this morning. 🧙🏽♂️
needs better volume control on your end i'm maxed out and still not loud enough
I have no problem.
Thanks, Shawn. My family loves that whole area and we hope to get back there soon.
Used to live in Flagstaff and loved going to Sedona to play.
Ditto. NAU grad.
Thank you…makes me realize how lucky many of us are to be alive today, and in relative safety and comfort, knowing experts like geologists can detect unsafe environments. I always wondered how the ancient Puebloans dealt with the dangers of living in the cliffs below overhanging rocks, and I try to imagine how they experienced sudden collapses or boulders falling without warning. How precarious their lives must have been.
Making a loop out of Soldier's Pass and Brin Mesa up there is my favourite Sedona hike, passed the sinkhole many times and knew the basics so this was cool to watch and learn a bit more.
Thanks for all the hard work on these videos!
Nice logo too
Have you ever flown into the airport at Sedona, sits on top of a Mesa, very cool?
Interesting, perhaps you should look at the "Bottomless Pit" in Capitol Reef which is close to the Crystal Mountaun
That there's a top five Willsey diagram. Thanks Shawn.
Thanks Shawn, because of your (and other youtube geologists) videos I was able to correctly surmise how this was formed before your explanation
Thanks, Professor!
Can't believe I have never seen anyone else bother to stop in to the Sedona red Rock country and Breakdown the geological artifacts found there, of course it would be you Shawn.
The place is so beautiful and sadly it's not really experienced as much because it is not cheap to even visit the place nonetheless live there. Which honestly is probably the best way to keep it beautiful, unlike So. Cal. and its expansive monoculture of geological prowess called "Concrete" from the coast all the way to the Mojave desert😂, lol.
Nice job! I immediately thought it was a sink hole, but your explanation of how it formed was excellent and at a very appropriate level for this venue - mad props.
Sedona is an awesome area, and brother if I could afford it it would be in my top 3 for retirement destinations.
Sedona is Arizona's Malibu Beach 😆
Fascinating! First thing I thought of was a sink hole like we have here in mid-Michigan, but not expected in the red rocks of AZ. Thank you.
My first thought was limestone. Very interesting. 😊
If you're in Arizona maybe you could give us your take on Tonto Natural Bridge, the world's largest travertine bridge .if I'm not mistaken., it's over north of Payson in Mogollon Rim country. It would probably get more attention if there was no Grand Canyon.
I remember standing at the edge of this thing! Your video doesn’t do its size justice but your explanation is spot on :) My in-laws lived around the corner from Soldiers Pass Trailhead over on Rim Shadows Cir. Stunning area to be in!
I mounted a month long expedition to the latitude/long you provided 33.88668 -111.78251 and did not find any hole. It was quite desolate and many of my support team did not survive. Eventually had to abandon the expedition when water ran out. Upon returning home, I googled Devil's Kitchen" in Google Earth found out it was at 34.88658 -111.78251. At that latitude, the Earth radius (if you beleive in the conspiracy the Earth is an obloid sphere) is 6371.181km which means that purposefully sending me 1° off means I was over 111.19km off from where you were. Many men died because of that typo in your video 🙂
So cool, thx!
Scenes like this reminds me of some of my Minecraft locations. I have been looking at the game differently since watching you and Geologyhub and learning about the different kinds if rock. I wish I had made it to Sodona when I was stationed in NM.
When it’s a little warmer, consider rappelling down The Jug in Salome Creek (central AZ) with a camera. And the nearby view of the Mazatzal Mountains from the top of Aztec Peak (when drivable) is also spectacular. Just don’t sample the prospects around Aztec Peak (uranium and asbestos)😊.
Cave, sink-hole... We know a Hell Mouth when we see one, Shawn! 😂
Another great video
While you're in the area, the drive up to Jerome has some interesting geology with redwall limestone and older precambrian Cleopatea rhyolite.
Hate to walk into that hole! But love to be in Sedona! thank you
Thank you, Check out Dante's descent, north west of Ashfork. It has been said that it is a vent hole for fresh air at the Grand canyon Caverns, 30 miles west.
It would be really neat to actually excavate the bottom layers to see if there any remains, pottery, etc and to create a possible time line for the multiple collapse and exposure events.
Thank you. 😊
Since it's sandstone/sedimentary, I figure it's some kind of weird sinkhole? Edit: Hey I was right. I assumed there was some limestone somewhere lol...
Thank to you Shawn, Nick and others, I'm better at recognizing Geologic events like this one 😊. opened up a whole new world for me. ( I guessed right this time😅)
Excellent!
Wow, that's cool and sort of scary at the same time. I always loved seeing the different landscapes when I traveled west from North Central Texas. Every trip was by a different highway and nothing was the same. Now in my twilight years these videos remind me of all of nature's beauty I have seen. Reminds me of even mu alaska trip. Thanks
All your geology lectures seemed to have left me hard of hearing. Worth it!
Thanks!
Cool, I went there in I think 1990 or 1991 and didn't know there had been a collapse just as recent as 1989. I was elementary school age at the time.
There is another YT person, who did an aerial view of a cave-in in the AZ high desert region.. Little scrub brush on the high plateau, nothing around for any hills or mountains, then whoof ! there is a cave-in and no roads going in, as you would expect some mine quarry. Just a singular cave-in area. Amazing to then look at its geology and figure out its cave-in specifics.
i wonder, has anyone ever drilled any boreholes around this area to determine if there is more of a cave system hidden and also slowly collapsing. you never know, this could be the birth of a new grand canyon making event. maybe even a new understanding of how it initially formed.
Thanks for another informative video Shawn.
Would this still be considered to be karst topography?
Yes, essentially it is caused by dissolution of limestone by groundwater.
Wish I could send you photos. Got similar structures seen right off I 40 in Santa Rosa, NM. Pecos River passes through there, as well as cool structures like the Blue Hole.
I wonder how many more upwardly mobile caves there are in this area. From what I understand, where there is a sinkhole, there are usually many others nearby.
Montezuma's well, stoneman lake, at least two at Wupatki National Monument.
@@karlbarros2849 OK, nice to know! I guess they're all related.
There could be others, just waiting to collapse.
Your diagrams show the water table in the supai limestone layer. Below is the Redwall limestone where the cave initially formed. Right?
would the redwall ls layer be dry with water table above it, and the location of the Devil's kidchen unique in that cracks allow water to infilrandw down to the redwall ls and disolved it to create the initial cave? Curious on why it happened at that specific spot instead of a much larger sinkhole or multiple smaller sink holes in the vicinity that would have had similar rock layers?
Or is thsi a case of a underground creek that had a narrow area where it passed over those rocks and thus limited scope of where it would disolve the limestone to create caves?
Beautiful, thank you Shawn! This immediately made me think of the cenotes in Mexico, same geological process here?
Yes. Dissolution of rock by groundwater.
@@shawnwillsey Thanks! :)
You should run a gain on your final edit. Your final volume is quite low. Not sure if you're aware. I have my volume on full blast and it still is only average.
lot of iron in that rock. whats the black and white stuff.
In some ways it looks similar to Karst formation like in the Badlands but that happens with limestone not sandstone that I remember?
Just wondering if the cave system has any known entrances?
It looked like a sinkhole but I have never seen one in sandstone before. Knowing the process I could not figure out how sandstone could dissolve to form a sinkhole. Having lived in Florida for many years I am very familiar with limestone sink holes.
You have to take us to a meteor crater, then we can ask it’s a meteor crater or not. But in this case it’s pretty obvious it’s a cavitation sinkhole because of the sheer surface and undercuts indicate an ongoing subterranean process.
But the question then becomes how you get limestone under metal rich mudstone formations and there we need to discuss ages and sources of silt.
Let’s crash something big into Earth and make some meteor formations😎 What could go wrong?
Is this the only one in the area? I would expect a number of them to be nearby, like the cenotes in Mexico. Are there other voids underground that might collapse to make more sinkholes?
Right at the start of the video my first thought is undermining by erosion of the ground below the surface leading to collapse of the surface rock into the cavity below. Now let's see if I was right.....
End of video edit: Yup - spot on.
No getting out for any animal down there. There may be other cave entrances to that limestone layer?
You should do a video on Dante's Descent near Seligman. It is similar, but much deeper.
Bedankt
Thanks, all those cars causing vibrations, it will be fun.
Karst below sandstone. Sneaky!
I never heard of this.
Prehistoric amphitheater?
Prehistoric quarry?
Let’s not over complicate
Looks like a quarry .
Cave collapse or sinkhole were my first thoughts give all the breccia.
meteor or volcano are not "'good hypothesis" if you've thought for a second or taken high school geology.
It looks like the rocks were cut with a tool!
So, am I correct in thinking this is like karst?
Hello everyone
Aliens, obviously!
The coordinates in the video are not correct, it is at 34N instead of 33N...
(I entered them in google earth to have a look at the photo but I got placed in a completely different place...)
Audio is not working.
Is that a new logo as your profile pic? It looks cool!! reminds me of the toadstools in kanab! This is not meant to be negative or stir anything up, but if you're upgrading your channel, it would be awesome to add a little bit of music to the first 15 seconds. I always go to adjust my volume and by the time you began talking I either have it way too quiet or way too loud. In all honesty, not trying to be rude at all :)
Yes, logo is patterned after a pic I took of Toadstools. Other logos and designs on merch here: geologyexplained-shop.fourthwall.com/
Thanks, for sharing, Shawn! I thought, this must be a zinkhole and I was right! So I have learned a little! I enjoy your way of teaching!!
Greetings from Cailie
from Denmark 🇩🇰
Kitchen because of not so Ancient vapor's fragrance ?
👍
Looks like erosion undermining the area.
But, how did the cave form?
Dissolution of rock by groundwater. The cave is in limestone, a soluble rock that is dissolved (slowly) by groundwater.
Then, over time, the unsupported "roof" of the cave begins to fall, resulting in the void working its way toward the surface. (Over a long period of time.)
The top formation is just impersonating Schnebley Hill. It's real name is the Dewey formation.
Wait..... is this a coded message? Shawn is going to rename this channel SCHOOL OF ROCK ?
Sedona
Livin’ on the karst
For those of you thinking about buying a nice retirement property in Sedona.....
idk. looks like mining to me.
It's not.
@@rickt.1870 Why, because you say so..? Or your precious know-nothing pseudo intellectuals told you so..
if you think about it, volcanos are the world's zits