Talk:Devils Tower National Monument

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America This article is part of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which collaborates on Native American, First Nations, Inuit, Métis and related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale. Suggested article edit guidelines: To help us prioritise our workload, and in readiness for Wikipedia:1.0, we need to assess our articles for Quality. If this article is Unassessed, please assess it. See the Article Classification for instructions. If you disagree with a rating, you can change it or discuss it at Article Classification. Before assessing this article, be sure to check the existing Archive of assessments made under the previous system (used until July 2006), and feel free to help in migrating the existing comments besides from adding your own evaluation. After assessing this article's quality, please make sure it to add it to the Lists at Article Classification, following the grading scheme detailed there. This article has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it needs. WikiProject Protected areas This article is part of WikiProject Protected Areas, a WikiProject related to national parks and other protected areas worldwide. It may include the protected area infobox. National Register of Historic Places WikiProject (Rated start-Class) This article is within the scope of the National Register of Historic Places WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of listings on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale. WikiProject Wyoming     (Rated Start-Class) This article is part of WikiProject Wyoming, a WikiProject related to the U.S. state of Wyoming. Start This article has been rated as start-Class on the assessment scale. WikiProject Volcanoes (Rated B-Class) Portal This article is part of WikiProject Volcanoes, a project to systematically present information on volcanoes, volcanology, igneous petrology, and related subjects. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit the article attached to this page (see Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ for more information), or join by visiting the project page. B This article has been rated as B-Class on the quality scale. Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance to WikiProject Volcanoes on the project's importance scale. If you have rated this article please consider adding assessment comments. Help with this template

Devil's Tower National Monument, Devil's Tower

Contents 1 Odd erosion pattern 2 Origin 3 Formation theory dissent, or original research? 4 Falling Rocks? 5 Similar structures 6 Name

[edit] Odd erosion pattern

Can anyone explain why the top third of the tower is visibly much more eroded than the relatively-pristine lower two-thirds? If the tower was exposed by erosion of surrounding soft material, wouldn't there be a gradual change in the amount of erosion from the most-eroded top to the least-eroded bottom? And, can I justifiably eroded put any more erosions in this paragraph? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.31.127.7 (talk) 05:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Origin

Devil's Tower has, indeed, a volcanic origin. It was most likely, a "caldera" similar to Kilauea's, without having an external flow and, therefore, without any volcanic material around its crater. Most "calderas" have little gases and hot lava may erupt to a certain altitude, but always falling inside the crater. This process explains absence of volcanic debris around Devil's Tower. --Fev 04:08, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Formation theory dissent, or original research?

The following two sentences require citation:

"The current popular theory, that the tower is an intrusive feature, does not really hold up under scrutiny. If the tower formed as an intrusion, then the columns should radiate out from the center instead of rising steeply."

These statements are preceded by:

"Geologists agree that Devils Tower was formed by the intrusion of igneous material."

They are then followed by:

"Geologists agree that the igneous material intruded and then cooled..."

This seeems contradictory. If geologists generally agree on a theory of formation which includes intrusion, then that "current popular theory" does indeed "hold up under scrutiny". There is room here for dissent, of course, but unless a dissenting theory has been published by geologists in a scientific journal, it would seem to violate WP:NOR. -Tobogganoggin talk 04:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Falling Rocks?

This article reads, "Rocks are continually breaking off and falling from the steep walls. Seldom do entire columns fall, but on rare occasions they do."

My family and I were out at the tower just today and one of the Park Rangers told us that the last rock to fall on the north side was about 10,000 years ago. Given the freeze-thaw attack that almost certainly occurs in the Wyoming climate, I didn't quite believe him.

He also said there was a column on the south side that leans about 1 cm. per year and will someday break off.

Can someone verify the frequency of spall from this monolith? Jeffcityjoe 05:33, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Similar structures

I removed the section "Similar structures" (see below) because the lead sentence is clearly wrong. Devils Tower is phonolite porphyry, not basalt. The rock was intruded far below the surface and cooled very slowly. Some of the content after the second sentence may be useable, but as written, it is an invitation to add a long list of superficially similar features that are unrelated geologically.

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 Postpile National Monument in California, Basalt Prisms in Hidalgo, Mexico, Organ Pipes National Park in Victoria (Australia), the "Organ Pipes" formation on Mount Cargill in New Zealand, Castellfollit de la roca in Catalonia, Spain and the "Columnar Cape" (Russian: Mis Stolbchaty) on Kunashir, the southernmost of the Kurile Islands in Russia.

Walter Siegmund (talk) 15:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I support your removal of this section. Cheers Geologyguy 16:01, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Name

The article says

If Colonel Dodge intended the name "Devils Tower" to refer to a single devil, then proper grammar would indicate that the monument be called "Devil's Tower". It has been said that the apostrophe was omitted due to a clerical error on early governmental papers, and the version without the apostrophe became its legal, and therefore official, name.

My understanding is that very, very few official geographical names in the United States take the possessive apostrophe, and those few (such as Martha's Vinyard) are grandfathered in; otherwise the possessive apostrophe is not permitted. So all this seems like groundless speculation. Herostratus (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I've removed it and added sourcing to the USGS for the policy of apostrophe elimination. It has been standard for over a century, even though the original reason for adopting the policy is unclear (there are several obvious practical reasons). In general, speculating like this on Wikipedia is discouraged. --Dhartung | Talk 05:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Your edit looks good to me.[1] Walter Siegmund (talk) 23:08, 2 May 2008 (UTC)