Devils Postpile National Monument
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| Devils Postpile National Monument | |
|---|---|
| IUCN Category III (Natural Monument) | |
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| Location | Madera County, California, USA |
| Nearest city | Mammoth Lakes, CA |
| Coordinates | |
| Area | 798 acres (3.22 km²) |
| Established | July 6, 1911 |
| Visitors | 114,788 (in 2004) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
Devils Postpile is a dark cliff of columnar basalt near Mammoth Mountain in extreme northeastern Madera County 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 Walter L. Huber, 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.
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. If the lava had cooled perfectly evenly, all of the columns would be expected to be hexagonal, but some of the columns have different polygonal cross-sections on account of variations in cooling. 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.[1] Compared with other examples of columnar jointing, the Postpile has more hexagonal columns. Another thing that places the Postpile in a special category is the lack of horizontal jointing.
Several stones from the Devil's Postpile can be seen at the entrance to the United States Geological Survey headquarters lot in Reston, Virginia.
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[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, Gilbert Hill in Mumbai, and the "Columnar Cape" (Russian: Mis Stolbchaty) on Kunashir, the southernmost of the Kurile Islands in Russia.
[edit] See also
[edit] Bibliography
- Roadside Geology of Northern and Central California, Alt, Hyndman (Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula; 2000) ISBN 0-87842-409-1
[edit] References
- ^ Devils Postpile National Park Geologic Story. USGS/National Park Service (January 2, 2000).
[edit] External links
- Devils Postpile National Monument is at coordinates Coordinates:
