Devils Postpile National Monument

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Devils Postpile National Monument
IUCN Category III (Natural Monument)

Location:	California, USA
Nearest city:	Mammoth Lakes, CA
Coordinates:	37°35′59″N, 119°04′52″W
Area:	798 acres (3.22 km²)
Established:	July 6, 1911
Total Visitation:	114,788 (in 2004)
Governing body:	National Park Service

The longer fragments of basalt at the base of the cliff are much larger than a person.

Devils Postpile is a dark cliff of columnar basalt near Mammoth Mountain in eastern California. The postpile was created by a lava flow sometime between less than 100,000 years ago (according to current potassium-argon dating) to 700,000 years ago (according to other dating methods). The source of the lava is thought to have been somewhere near Upper Soda Springs campground at the north end of Pumice Flat on the floor of the Middle Fork of the San Joaquin River, from where it flowed to the site of the Postpile, was impounded by a moraine, and reached a thickness of 400 feet (newer estimate) to 600 feet (older estimate). In any event, the lava that now makes up the Postpile was near the bottom of this mass.

Because of its great thickness, much of the mass of pooled lava cooled slowly and evenly, which is why the columns are so long and so symmetrical. Columnar jointing occurs when certain types of lava cool; the joints develop when the lava contracts during the cooling process.

A glacier later removed much of this mass of rock and left a nicely polished surface on top of the Postpile with very noticeable glacial striations and glacial polish.

Devils Postpile was once part of Yosemite National Park, but discovery of gold near Mammoth Lakes prompted a boundary change that left the Postpile on adjacent public land. A proposal to build a hydroelectric dam later called for blasting the Postpile into the river. Influential Californians, including John Muir, persuaded the federal government to stop the demolition and in 1911, President Howard Taft made the area into a United States National Monument. The John Muir Trail and Pacific Crest Trail pass through the monument.

Basalt column on side

The Postpile's columns average 2 feet in diameter, the largest being 3.5 feet, and many are up to 60 feet long. Together they look like tall posts stacked in a pile, hence the feature's name. In a perfect world, all columnar joints would create hexagon-shaped columns; nature, however isn't perfect. A survey of 400 of the Postpile's columns found that 44.5% were 6-sided, 37.5% 5-sided, 9.5% 4-sided, 8.0% 7-sided, and 0.5% 3-sided.^{[citation needed]} Compared with other examples of columnar jointing, the Postpile has more 6-sided columns. Another thing that places the Postpile in a special category is the lack of horizontal jointing.

[edit] Similar structures

Although the basaltic columns are impressive, they are not unique. Basalt columns are a common volcanic feature, and they occur on many scales (faster cooling produces smaller columns). Other notable sites include Fingal's Cave in Scotland, the Garni gorge in Armenia, the Cyclopean Isles near Sicily, Giant's Causeway in Ireland, Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming, Basalt Prisms in Hidalgo, Mexico, the "Organ Pipes" formation on Mount Cargill in New Zealand and the "Columnar Cape" (Russian: Mis Stolbchaty) on Kunashir, the southernmost of the Kurile Islands in Russia.