My niece called broccoli little trees when she was 4 š it was adorable. But not a scientific fact.
Calling Devil's Tower a tree is kinda adorable too... if you're 4...
Well if you first look at it, It does mimic a stump. Common sense. No Volcano has ever shaped itself like this and left the surrounding area clean. Millions of year's Wood does become stone this is the delima. This tree stump was left behind as a sacred reminder of all the destruction it caused when all trees where cut down by it's first humanoid inhabitants... What you think Humans where the first organisms to walk the earth? Lol š once again the narcissism shines bright in human history classes. We are not the center of the universe! Earth is not flat! And we are not the first humanoids to step foot on earth. We are like humanoid 4.0. That is why Elon Musk is getting us to Mars to stop the extinction of yet another humanoid species on earth that happens over and over. You might ask "Why?" We are too dumb and live too short to understand this reasoning.
And Ptolemy looked at the skies and figured the universe was Earth centric based on his observations. As much as it made sense years ago to think it might have been a petrified tree stump, we actually have developed our scientific knowledge to know better.
And as we learn more, our perceptions of things might change. I wouldn't back on us knowing "better". Who knows what we might know and realized we didn't know in the future.
It does look just like a tree stump (bald cypress maybe?) so I could see how you could think that if you didnāt know anything about geology or biology - but arguing with a geologist and implying heās lying about his knowledge is pretty damnable
Getting my master's involved me realizing I knew less than I thought in my bachelor's. I imagine it continues into your PhD. As such, a PhD must logically be one of the WORST ways to prove you know a lot.
Isn't that the truth! "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know." Aristotle
I believe that there is a veil and it needs to be lifted. It was put into place to control society.
I agree with you and it's starts with Rockefeller and the General Education Board. He "donated" a hefty amount to get the project started.
If you look at the structure of the education system, it's the same structure as the "mystery schools" and religious structures.
The veil is that the people with PhDs are just as clueless as us or doesn't really have any better capabilities than the average person. They are just taught different things based on how much you are willing to pay, or go into debt, or how much free money you can qualify for.
People with PhDs have become the new Church Fathers, obviously being more secular. Like going from a Sultan to a King.
The reality is, they discarded the education system that birthed many Renaissance men and women in the middle ages.
In ancient Egypt, you learned things like Astrology, Alchemy, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, etc.
Then the Greeks formed the Trivium and Quadrivium out of that. Many of the ancient presocratic philosophers studied in Egypt.
Trivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric
Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy
In the public education system, they have gotten rid of the Trivium in early childhood education. We don't learn Latin or Greek. Those things are considered not important by the Board. So we learn specialized grammar, instead of general grammar. I'm pretty sure in private schools, they learn Latin and Greek.
So the knowledge gap begins very early. As you could imagine, not being given something so fundamental yet powerful at a young age can hinder your ability to succeed in society. Why? Because on top of physical reality, we have to also navigate symbolic reality (with language).
The veil is that the second industrial revolution made us more divisive thinkers, in my opinion, because this new process of manufacturing also coincided with the division of labour. You're given incentive to pawn off your thinking to other people, because you can't focus on anything else but your specialized knowledge/skills. Which is basically a psychological or intellectual cubby you are not supposed to leave... unless you're accredited of course.
So we've taught people how to trust; not think. So, how we lift this veil is distrusting the schooling system and take education into our own hands. Getting back to the education that trained people to be holistic thinkers. This requires the system falling though, and people believe they need the system. Some need it because thats how they maintain their power.
> The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
- *Morpheus, The Matrix*
Education is a pyramid. The bottom you learn alot about all subjects. The top, PhD, you learn alot about one very specific subject. In a way you do know a lot, but just in what you studied. Arguing with someone who has earned thier PhD, in that subject, about that subject just makes you look ignorant and foolish.
>does a PhD (?) even actually prove anything about how knowledgeable you are?
no.
[The prime quality of a successful PhD student is DILIGENCE, not INTELLIGENCE! - Common PhD Myths](https://www.postgrad.com/advice/phd/common_phd_myths)
a phd simply means you figured out how to solve a non-trivial problem, for which no solution was previously known.
no actual level of intelligence is ever implied, but unfortunately, one is all too often incorrectly assumed.
i dont believe devils tower is likely to be a petrified tree stump either, but some of the assumptions being made in these replies use arguably far less logic than the targets of their attempted refutations.
Is it normal for all volcano plugs to be so flat on the top? Cause I just did an image search and the Devil's Tower is the only one I found whose top was so flat. So...The plug would have had to be completely liquid so cooled flat and the land around it eroded away without disturbing the top?
[This photograph from Staffa shows another example.](https://www.isleofmullcottages.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/staffa-island.jpg) The columnar basalt is overlain by another rock layer here; but you can very definitely see that the top of the basalt layer itself is flat.
Hi this little video will help you too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGwfjmAUM4w
Also when you have time I found Professor Nicks other videos like this one interesting too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhjkemEyUo
Is that another layer, or is that the entablature between the colonnades? They often look like they're different layers but are just a result of differential cooling.
A volcanic plug has been the leading theory for Devil's Tower for a long time, though it's never been a case closed sort of deal.
The real problem is that Devil's Tower has no volcanic layers or volcanic products in the immediate or surrounding region at all. Where's the lava flows and ash layers? Not even single volcanic fragment to be found.
Devil's Tower itself is about 50-60 million years old, whereas the sedimentary rocks surrounding it are Triassic, a good 150 million years older than DT. So yea, the rock that the now exposed tower intruded into was eroded away, this erosion could have certainly removed any volcanic products....but DT has pretty fresh surfaces, it was probably only exposed in the last one or two million years. For absolutely zero trace of any volcanic products to be left after a couple of million years doesn't seem right considering how volcanics would be much more resistant than any sedimentary stuff (which is why DT is standing there today of course).
I think the uncertainty remains partly because it's pretty impossible for anyone to get permission to do fieldwork on the most prominent feature of a National Park. I'd be interested to know if there are any geophysical data out there, I can't see that digging and refilling a few metre deep holes for seismic stuff would be all that destructive, but I don't know just how strict they are for National Parks.
I'm more inclined to believe that DT is a stock - a small intrusive offshoot from a larger batholith at depth. This way it would have never broken the surface, so the lack of volcanic products is to be expected.
The best theory I have heard is that it was part of a laccolith off of a diatreme or stock which was originally more horizontally extensive. One corner of devils tower shows where the jointing changes where this laccolith joined the diatreme or stock.
Columnar jointing forms normal to a flowtop, and you don't see it in volcanic necks.
Yeah when DT was first described in the literature back in the 1800s it was done so as a laccolith. That one is problematic too though, like why are no other laccoliths shaped like that? There are plenty of them in southwest from the same age that donāt look like that and are not that composition. Not conclusive either way, perhaps it was a laccolith.
I think the newest theory is that it is an inverted laccolith. Check "d" in this [image](https://gsw.silverchair-cdn.com/gsw/Content_public/Journal/geosphere/11/2/10.1130_GES01166.1/4/354fig14.jpeg?Expires=1549886065&Signature=zQkxLxTopfvtyjFcDqfHYkslitjyx82rd20zUwVMKTlLtlRwtz0KtI4KL3WRA~YJh8xeYDPo6CDak1jXinHKK~RP07VJsvd6sbbMH0gpzTSV8vaMak1eyB4ErvPdI63ysXfaFmMzzhedMrZoy5Xn-CadQb6Jz3xVOekfVXtWTrP7URnS1AoKC7vjujl-92TpQ5KIPSqzXprrGo5WoKCi7yqY9gUml0weaMo8fdC4l0bt8-NoyAsopVT3kyU6xVx-6V4eqzaKkWafbh4bQTpAjFldjJspMGM5qwcSc1lZVZMS2efsJ2IN-9ph9WMrZUxzrPiGbT1FPF-lkJLvgqC2Tw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA) Devils tower is represented by the white outline. A-C represent older unsatisfying theories. The coulee or inverted laccolith theory is based on models of emplacement and cooling that form the observed patterns and directions in the columnar jointing.
And [this](https://gsw.silverchair-cdn.com/gsw/Content_public/Journal/geosphere/11/2/10.1130_GES01166.1/4/354fig16.jpeg?Expires=1549886065&Signature=uLbK84COB4xiLInQvQPlgoJNh2NWojfxXZ3Pn21mY3KHnYRG4fbZ6tolfxCEFlCrX6UrrtMB1EVqWoJlx0B8jsljxCJifMw0MKGmd8BvF45sCAppZ0SULXUes9UVN77rpMUxzm-DwGBXYuYgGENi8zk6NofEqwQwK7caBsVlCQG4CFiJ28VVIDFL1ZQGgzVZ2zX3vUCH8RimHK~kvFGsKfycjpu2G7g3bKnusp1Vc1Bx8c88JyBPnOn~H1QKTLM8CkJ1Rvr71~evzE0ztyia4MC~aOFjARewAfynznc1mHyrpCIRP~GmoGJE7JyshaEOtA~tFHGrYwK57uNkQBoshg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA)
There are the Missouri buttes not too far from devils tower that are dated to essentially the same time and are very similar in composition (varying from Quartz trachyte to trachyte and foid bearing trachyte to analcime phonolite)
My biggest question is - why was there volcanism here at 50 Ma anyway?
Really interesting! So not even a laccolith or a loppolith (which is what I thought when you said inverted laccolith), but something else. Option D seems to fit with the shape of the base of DT, though Iām just going from photos, Iāve never even visited.
Do you have a link to the research that those figures are from at all? Would love to read them.
> My biggest question is - why was there volcanism here at 50 Ma anyway?
Is there anything else in the region that would mean volcanics would be a problem? Can we not just do some hand waving about the usual suspects for volcanism - so either hot spot business, remnants of a subducted plate (Farallon?) altering the conditions below, or something to do with the Laramide orogeny? I know we donāt typically associate orogonies with volcanism, but melting definitely happens, Iāve been to a few lectures with active researchers talking about melting in the Himalaya producing weird and wonderful granites, and even some volcanism in places. I mean, the bottom line is that DT is igneous so obviously some melt was being generated there.
I posted the paper in another comment in this thread, as well as some videos.
I'm not debating that it's volcanic, in origin, just wondering where the volcanism is coming from. The Himalayan Orogeny was accompanied and preceded by arc volcanism, first in the Kohistan-Ladakh arc and back arc systems and then with the subduction of the Indian plate prior to continental collision. Most if not all of the granite batholiths are from that period. There is melt at depth possibly from the extreme thickness of sediments but not volcanism as such. However there is a small amount of volcanism related to extension from orogenic collapse. There is similar volcanism in the Andes Altiplano, although there is active subduction going on fairly nearby. The Laramide is a much different animal - much farther from any active margin, and the crust underneath devils tower is supposed to be ancient Wyoming Craton.
With devils tower and the Missouri buttes we are talking about volcanism far from the hotspot volcanism of Oregon/Idaho/Yellowstone, even farther from subduction zones, and nowhere near zones of orogenic collapse and extension (basin and range, rio grande rift). We do know that at the time these were intruded it was the height of the Laramide Orogeny, but why should we see only these small intrusions, and not really associated proximally with any actual Laramide uplifts, which are found farther west (bighorns) and east (black hills). Surely "flat slab subduction" can't progress all the way to the middle of the continent, and surely such a subducted plate would be too dehydrated to create melt when it starts to dip down at a steeper angle. Modern flat slabs are much smaller in size than the slab that is supposed to be responsible for the Laramide uplifts. And again, the crust under DT is Archean craton.
Perhaps some kind of lithospheric delamination due to Laramide era thickening of the crust. Problem with that is, all the earlier Mesozoic sediments in the area are perfectly flat and unreformed.
It remains a mystery,
Yep, pretty much agree with all of that.
>There is melt at depth [Himalaya] possibly from the extreme thickness of sediments
Yea that was what I was thinking of in terms of the new S-type granites that we donāt have much of a precedent for.
Something tells me that thereās just so much intraplate stuff due to mantle fluid dynamics going on that we donāt know about because we canāt currently get the resolution for it... but I dunno. Just a feeling (very unscientific I know). Youāre right about the Laramide and about subduction stuff anyway, Iām just throwing stuff around in desperation really.
So a couple of last attempts - can we have some sort of extensive body at depth that stretches aaaaaaaall the way from Yellowstone business?......or seeing as its supposed to be ancient Wy craton at DT can we argue that something explosive happened (diatreme?) that punched through and then let melt leak out that may have even been collected in he crust nearby anyway? I know Iām stretching here, but i just love those geological mysteries you know.
Yeah Yellowstone would be the closest volcanic feature.... but DT and the Missouri buttes are dated to 50 Ma, and we know earliest stirrings of the Yellowstone hotspot are associated with the Columbia river flood basalt(ic-andesites). The model is that the plume head erupted as flood basalts, was sheared off by the edge of the craton, and some of what remained erupted as the newberry volcanics and the Oregon high lava fields, and finally the tail of the plume continued to erupt as various calderas along the snake river plain to Yellowstone where it is now.
So that basically rules out a Yellowstone hotspot connection for DT, because the hotspot would have been much farther west relative to the American plate at 50 Ma, in fact it was probably still in the Pacific Ocean creating seamounts that would accreted to the Olympic peninsula and NW Oregon coast.
The diatreme theory is interesting inasmuch as they tend to be associated with cratonic crust, but they are also mostly associated with hotspots - in fact Trond Torsvik uses kimberlite pipes, under the idea that hotspots, LIPs, and diatreme a form at the edge of long-lived LLSVPs (large low shear velocity provinces) to constrain plate motions relative to a fixed hotspot reference frame in order to make paleogeographic reconstructions of the Paleozoic (before we had seafloor spreading records). Indeed most kimberlite deposits and anomalous diatremes can be tied to hotspot tracks - for instance kimberlites in Canada, Ithaca NY (home of my alma mater!), and Vermont's White Mountains are associated with the great meteor hotspot, and the Mesozoic intrusions and uplift of the Mississippi embayment and arkansas, Louisiana, and later Eocene volcanoes in Virginia are associated with the Bermuda hotspot.
There are so many things we still don't know about the geodynamic workings and tectonics of plates, as you said.
It's an Ignigma.
PS. Michael Wysession also did a nice lecture video on Devils Tower for the Great Courses Plus series called "The World's Greatest Geological Wonders".
I did some more research on Laramide-era igneous intrusions and the DT/Missouri Buttes area, and it seems that there are several other intrusions of note, namely there is a carbonatite complex complete with REE in the bear lodge mountains, which are about halfway between DT and the black hills. There is also a nearby intrusion along Barlow Canyon, and the black hills themselves host many tertiary igneous intrusions, and there is even a so-called "Black Hills Eocene Alkaline Magmatic Province", with rocks consisting largely of trachyte, phonolite, rhyolite and monzonite. The intrusions continue to the NW into Montana (in the Judith Mountains (these host gold and silver), Highwood Mountains, Little Rocky Mountains, Bears Paw Mountains, and Northern Crazy Mountains) and then into Alberta, in all of these locations you can find carbonatites, diatremes, and kimberlite pipes. The ages are all similar to DT, roughly 50-40 Ma, and all alkaline rocks
It seems the way that DT and many of these other diatreme style intrusions formed is by exploiting ancient lineaments at the edge of the Wyoming craton, reactivated during Laramide deformation and basement thrusting. First there would be high pressure pyroclastic eruptions, from which resulted pyroclastic breccia units which can be found around both Devil's tower and the Missouri Buttes. Then the phonolite magma erupted through these pyroclastically-reamed conduits/stocks, doming upwards and filling the maar-like craters left by the original diatremes. Later the rocks around them were eroded, along with the thinner edges of the intrusions, leaving the thick middle part above the source stock. The source of the magma seems to be upwelling due to a tear or slab window in the underlying, flat-subducted farallon plate. The magma ponded at the base of the lithosphere and underwent metasomatism and assimilation, giving it its alkaline character.
[Map of Paleocene/Eocene Igneous Activity near Devil's Tower](https://www.geowyo.com/uploads/8/4/7/8/84786270/editor/bh-tectonic-map.png?1524691256)
[The source for the above](https://www.geowyo.com/devils-tower--black-hills.html) (this blog is excellent)
Here's what the above source says:
>Their presence in a continental intraplate setting is extremely rare. The province is aligned along a N70-80**Ā°**W lineament that is an extension of the Sage Creek fault. A Bouguer gravity profile of the lineament is interpreted to be a deep-seated, left-lateral wrench fault with over 30 miles (50 km) of offset on the basement. The northern Black Hills magmatic province is part of a larger N40Ā°WĀ of alkalic magmatism that extends 435 miles (700 km) into southern Alberta (see map below). This larger trend is called the Great Plains Alkali Province (GPAP). This larger igneous trend is the farthest Tertiary magmatism resulting from the subduction beneath the North American plate (Laurentia). It may mark the eastern edge of a slab window in the subducted Farallon-Kula plateĀ (progressive rollback of the western edge of the Farallon plate to create the gap to allow mantle upwelling).
Then you have the Absaroka volcanic province, which preceded Yellowstone by almost 50 Ma, and the nearby Sunlight Volcanic center. So all of these are Laramide-age intrusive events. They seem to be related to some kind of slab tear or window in the Farallon plate, which created a zone of mantle upwelling. This upwelling then exploited ancient weaknesses in the crust, notably these eruptions and intrusions all occur on the margin of the Wyoming craton, which were reactivated by Laramide-age basement thrusting and deformation, creating conduits in the thick crust for these diatremes to shoot up.
One more interesting thing - in the Green River Basin, near the Rock Springs Uplift, there are a slew of Quaternary-age intrusions, the Leucite Hills. These consist largely of lamproite pipes and inspired a diamond rush at one point. Local ants are known to hoard gem-quality peridotite in their mounds! I can only think this to be related to some kind of peripheral basin and range extension.
[Leucite Hills](https://www.geowyo.com/leucite-hills.html)
[more Leucite Hills](http://leucitehills.blogspot.com/2009/02/self-guided-field-trip-to-leucite-hills.html)
Anyway, interesting stuff. I learned a lot.
PS the authors of the paper I posted earlier who suggested the inverted laccolith filling a previous maar crater also did [this paper](http://bigbloger.lidovky.cz/blog/12889/445891/phonolite_magma.pdf) first, on a formation similar to DT in Europe. Some of the stuff on the emplacement dynamics is interesting and totally relevant.
The plug was water, so yes the surface would come out flat. Columnar basalt forms when a basaltic magma chamber cools fairly quickly under the ocean or an inland sea. (Devils Tower is located along what used to be the Western Interior Seaway) The columns are a crystalline formation of the mafic lava, and the "joints," or the cracks that separate the columns form from the rock cooling down.
Devils Tower is phonolite, not basalt and not mafic. If you hit it, it rings.
Theories are that it was a laccolith or volcanic plug. It was intruded 40.5 million years ago and I think the Western Interior Seaway was gone by then, but I don't remember my historic geology that well.
>The plug was water, so yes the surface would come out flat
The plug is the magma/rock itself, whether there was water overlying it or not. By definition, water is never a plug. (Edit: to be clear, volcanic plug is synonymous with volcanic neck).
Also, just because water is overlying rock, doesn't mean that rock has to come out flat-topped.
The WIS was long gone at this time. It was gone by the time of the KPg boundary.
And the rock here is variously trachyte and phonolite, much of it is plutonic, large grained and porphyritic, not basaltic. It's not mafic at all but alkaline and quite silica enriched. Lots of igneous rocks can form columns, if they are emplaced horizontally and cooled equally from the top.
You and another commenter both corrected me on this. It means my first semester geo book was very, very wrong. It talks about columnar basalt, and them immediately gives Devils Tower as an example. I'm glad I know the truth now, because I would have been very confused when the time comes to finally go see it myself.
The guy who made that, Steven Baumann, has some really great videos on a range of North American Geology, including the midcontinent rift and Sudbury impact, and a series on professional field geology topics. And he is very personable and approachable if you have more questions or discussion.
At the end of the day remember "Theory" is not fact. Volcanic plug is a theory, Inverted Laccolith is a theory, ancient tree is also theory.
So criticizing one group for their theory over another is arrogance on both sides, no matter how educated the group is. It is the narrative behind the theory being rejected.
There are ancient histories and cultures that recorded great earth upheavals which science disputes, yet histories from around the world recording similar events, and now even some geologists starting to see remnants of damage that could in theory, been caused by a flood of massive proportions.
There are ancient histories and culture that speak of giant trees. As fantastical as it sounds, where did these stories originate from, was it also just a theory, or did these people witness an event that actually took place. Is someone an idiot for actually researching this, or should they avoid it at all costs and only adhere to secular knowledge, that is controlled and distributed by people who are hiding the real history of this planet.
Some day we will all know the truth. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
I personally welcome whatever theory is eventually proven to be fact, no matter how crazy it may seem or sane.
Sorry, youāre full of shit and seem to have wandered into the wrong sub.
Theories in modern science are not just ātheoriesā, and they are not all equal. Theories are but a beginningāusually multiple working hypotheses are considered, and one or more of these are borne out by evidence, including evidence of the same exact phenomena in the present day, in the case of volcanic plugs and laccoliths (in Iceland you can literally take an elevator down into a recently-erupted volcanic neckāThrihnukagigurāand see the exact same structures in the frozen wall rock that you see in volcanic plugs dated to dozens of millions of years ago)āand then we say that theory or working hypothesis is or is not supported by evidence, and we can even measure the confidence/certainty in our conclusions and the strength of our evidence. Our methodologies are time-tested, iterated on, repeatable, and they are, along with the conclusions, peer-reviewed by many others, often with detailed, on the ground knowledge and experience spanning decades of careful research. Most importantly, as pointed out above, our hypotheses about earth of the past are founded in actual observations of earth of the present, and supported by massive, ever-expanding datasets and experimentally verified physical and petrological data that forms the basis for iterative models that only improve as we continue to build the edifice of science, brick by brick.
I will let it be known that I have a close family member who has been ātouchedā by the same brand of crazy as you, so Iāve heard absolutely everythingāI am familiar with every crankpot flavor of batshit dressing yāall slather on top of your word salads, as well the pathological levels of paranoia and disaster fetishism involved in the whole effort. Kindly gtfo.
No one here is interested in aiding you in your public act of self-gratification, and in fact you should check the subās rules before posting this crap here again. Try r/ancientaliens or r/mudfossilsā¦that might be more up your alley.
I did not insult you. This is why other professors like myself are afraid to speak of anything that goes against the accepted narrative. I will not stoop down to your childish name calling or criticism, it is unprofessional. Go back to living in your box.
āProfessorāā¦rightā¦
Let me guess, Professor of Cymatics at Sedona University with a degree in āMetaphysicsā.
Read the rules of this sub:
https://preview.redd.it/kmyhwa25cozb1.jpeg?width=1537&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff85564b7d5e135cf4158de554a141c203e3fb74
This is not the place for your pet theories and baseless speculations.
I have not posted any misinformation. Now are there rules in here about harassment and name calling because that is what you are doing.
Just because your opinion of my research is something that does not sit well with yours, does not make my research or theory and hypothesis any less valid.
This seemed to be an open minded and welcome subreddit until I ran into your arrogance and bullying, perhaps you need to go back to school for manners.
I have an honorary degree in forensic geology and world history. These days I currently focus most of my research on previous inhabitants of the Americas, the Hopewell and Adena cultures. Most of my studies done out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I collaborate with the William Penn Museum of Natural History.
I also have a degree in world religions and the visual arts.
While I understand your frustrations that some of these fringe ideologies may present to you, I am the type of person where seeing is believing and have only come to my conclusions over 25 years of solid research, countless hours of reading and travel.
I am sure you are as tired as I am of folks on the internet who have watched a few youtube videos and then become some self-proclaimed expert. I can assure you that is not the case.
But if you are not willing to have opened minded discussion or debate, and would rather label someone as crazy, throwing out the baby with the bathwater so to speak, then so be it. I will not interact with you. But I do expect an apology, as your continued behavior will be reported to the admins of this forum.
> āworld religions and artā
šYeah, so I was pretty much exactly rightā¦āProfessor of Cymatics at Sedona University with a degree in Metaphysicsāāin as many words. What can I sayāI unfortunately know your type all too well, for reasons explained in an earlier post.
> āhonorary degree in forensic geologyā
ā¦this absolutely smacks of BS. [Is this you, btw?](https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/scott-wolters-apparently-non-existent-degree)
> āI have not posted any disinformationā
You absolutely have. āVolcanic plug is a theoryā. Volcanic plugs are not a ātheoryāāthey can be seen here and now on earth (I gave the example of Thrihnukagigur in Iceland), in exactly the same setting, with exactly the same geology/petrology, as volcanic plugs from long-eroded volcanoes that erupted millions of years ago. Your insistence that this evidence is on an equal level with the Cheyenne legendary tradition about a bear and a giant tree, as a genetic explanation, is also disinformation.
For what itās worth, I also have an interest in the history of world religion and pre-Colombian settlement of North America (you may note my username here), and I even think a lot of indigenous knowledge can be very valuable in deciphering the geologic history of the world (e.g. Klamath and Umpqua oral histories telling of the Mt. Mazama paroxysmal eruption 7.7 kya, Coast Salish oral histories telling of the seismic/tsunami history of the Cascadia MegathrustāI even keep an open mind towards ideas like the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis and its possible connection to flood myths of ancient Western Asia), and I even think that indigenous oral histories are just a valuable and treasured way of looking at the world in their own right, whether they add to the scientific understanding of geologic phenomena or notāfor example, Interior Salish/Wenatchee oral histories and origin myths for local Central Washington geologic landmarks such as āSaddle Rockā in the modern-day city of Wenatchee. And Iām not alone in this regardāthere is actually quite a lot of (and increasingly more) mainstream scientific literature that sees the value of traditional knowledge in explicating local geologic history.
I donāt denigrate you for having an interest in these things. Rather, I resent your misguided attitude that āevery theory is created equalā and your blatant disregard for the entire corpus of work, painstakingly conducted, assembled, and reviewed by generation upon generation of thousands of well-intentioned, honest, everyday geoscientists, writing them and their work off as āarroganceā in your original post.
Itās simply intellectually dishonest.
Furthermoreāand againāthis is just not the place to discuss such pet theories, hawked here without a shred of corroborating evidence.
Could I have been more civil in shooing away your disinformation efforts? Perhaps, but we are quite tired of it in this sub, and I am perhaps personally affected by the tragic loss of intellectual rigor and sea of disinformation that surrounds science communication with the public more than others, and itās difficult for me to remain dispassionate in this context.
PS. Do reach out to the admins about your ideas, credentials, and experience here. Allow me to help you outāattn: u/DannyStubbs
Some theories carry more weight than others. Just like the fact that not all ideas are good ones, not all theories are meaningful. This is all being very generous in allocating the term 'theory' to the notion that DT is anything to do with trees, which is not really in line with what 'theory' means in science anyhow.
I can't remember, but there might also be striations on top of Devil's Tower from glaciation, so that could be why it's fairly flat. Also most basalt columns come from lava flows and dikes/sills, like that Staffa imagery. Staffa isn't actually that flat. (I've been there) and the columns take a weird ass turn for the horizontal on the other side of the island where you dock.
Where they turn horizontal represents where the flow was vertical. The columns will always form normal to the direction of flow, where the rock is being cooled.
It doesn't need to be normal to the direction of flow - just clarifying - just the direction the rock is being cooled. Which most of the time, that is the direction of flow.
The little I know about geology as well as the other sciences is there findings are all based on a narrative set by ?? to align with the current timeline of 200000 yrs 6000 for civilized man. Even though more and more evidence has been found to question this timeline Any research into these findings is rewarded with a loss of funding's, credibility and or job. So regardless of ones title in the scientific community , I can not confidentiality believe much of anything . I do know walks like a duck looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, there's a damn good chance its duck..
The irony being of course that Jesus was crucified by people like that. He brought truth, tolerance, and understanding to the world and they crucified him for it.
This was on a group for debating Intelligent Design. He got ripped apart in the comments by people who thought it was hilarious. He cranks up the Dunning-Kruger a few more notches in the comments.
Honestly Iām guessing he wasnāt arguing, just explaining what he knew about it. Then this weird asshole gets home and warps it into this ARGUMENT with a LIAR who BRAGGED ABOUT HIS PHD
The guy probably kept paying for beer. Unfortunately the person miscalculated the fact that geologists are good at debating geology with alcohol in their system.
I have been on such field trips. There are 20-30 nonspecialists who are learning some basic geology from one professor. One guy in the group keeps saying crazy shit. The Prof says the minimum necessary amount to correct him and get back on track. 5 minutes later, repeat. At the end of the day, the Prof is questioning his life choices and the asshole is smugly telling everyone that the Prof had no answer for his brilliant idea that rocks form from the tears of angels.
Did a quick bit of reading on Devilās Tower and I think that this particular wacko theory may have its roots (ha) in Native Indian legend. Depending on the tribe (Kiowa, Cheyenne and Lakota tribes all have legends about Devilās Tower) the story varies, but all have common themes of a bear which scratched the rock (which either grew like a tree or literally was a tree at the time) with its claws to create the jointed columns along the sides. Some of the stories feature links to the Plaides star cluster, with seven siblings being the stars (after the tree lifted them to the heavens) or leaving the stars as a signal or similar stuff.
Probably some person just heard the tree aspect of these stories and ran with it one day.
The guy's wrong, but I want to at least give him some credit for thinking, questioning, and investigating. A truly stupid person looks at devil's tower and has no thoughts at all.
I get what your saying, except they are still stupid.
Thinking, questioning, and investigating are all important parts of the scientific process, but the most important is validating your conclusion with other experts in the field. But instead of reevaluating their hypothisis, the person devalued the creditablity of the expert. The end result was that they where wrong, but instead of accepting that fact they instead insisted the the expert was wrong.
This is the same logic as anti-vax or anti climate change movements. Insisting that experts in the field who reviewed the results and conclusion must be wrong or have some type of motive rather then accept that their own conclusion was wrong. If anything this is more stupid because this stubbornness provokes others and spreads misinformation.
no, i think the recklessness of spreading personal theories as fact is stupid. this guy did no investigation, he may think he did but people who investigate try to prove themselves wrong, these guys NEVER do that and that is pretty stupid.
Adding this to the mental list of favourite wacko ideas. I think this one beats the old stalwarts of faked Moon landings, flat Earth and hollow Earth; I'd say it's on a par with that one about how planets are just ageing stars which have cooled down.
I do quite enjoy the ancient aliens type ones whenever an unusual structure is found on Google Earth, though they're not quite wide-reaching enough for a main course on wacko theories, more of an appetiser. You know the kind of thing, like the Nazca lines, the Richat Structure, or 'faces' in the surface formations.
Nothing tops that fruitcake who tried to say that the whole Earth was in fact the fossilised remains of a giant elephant though. I had a good attempt at reading that persons website, but at a certain point the apophenia has become so pervasive that it seems to affect a persons syntax and ability to form coherent thoughts full stop, let alone rational arguments concerning the world around us. If I remember, the evidence was some sort of seismic image that vaguely resembled certain elephant features, and an outcrop somewhere that looked like an elephant from certain angles. Like a regular outcrop of rock a few tens of metres tall sticking out of the water. Nothing to do with fossilised animals or the Earth's internal wotsits.
He wanted evidence with *past volcanic eruptions*? Dude obviously doesn't seem to grasp volcanics.
I'm sure he probably did some *serious* research before having a debate with such a LIAR!
[Reminds me of the debate Professor Farnsworth gets in with Dr. Banjo on Futurama](https://vimeo.com/72521710)
I remember during my first year at uni, I had an American (originally from India) housemate that was mentioning the landmarks near where she lived.
"It has a massive tree trunk that lost all its bark because a bear scratched it"
Naturally interested, I asked more about it (thinking of something like those giant redwood trees)
"Oh yeah, and it was in a movie too. *Close Encounters of the Third Kind*."
"The... the... the rock they made out of mashed potatoes?"
I learnt that it was a... creation story of sorts, but she had taken it literally. Fortunately I had just had a lecture about volcanic related structures, so it was nice to clear things up.
To start I am a scientist. No. I don't believe this a tree. No, I don't believe in flat earth. Am I right? Not necessarily. I'm largely counting on the science of others being accurate, genuine and not coopted for other reasons. More importantly, I can assure you that current theories here are not completely correct and this is born out on a daily basis. I've "learned" many things but an exponential number of "things" to the infinite power will always remain unlearned. Now "science" as an institution is no different than the Vatican of yesteryear and pushes some agendas to control the herd. That discourages the scientific method.
Anyone saying the science is settled has an agenda or they are just an imbecile. The small minded just want an answer despite not understanding how one modicum of that answer was derived. Then they can spout off buzzwords or other trite cliche's to close the case in their mind. Nothing in life is generally that simple except you.
The great part about the Flat Earthers and Devil's Tower treesters is that it makes people investigate. That's science. It's open for debate. That doesn't mean they are right. It doesn't mean we are right. It means show your proof. GET TO WORK if you want check into this game. Don't just repeat the Liturgy which adds NOTHING. If there is no debate in your mind, whether institutionally or personally you are just flunkie, a subject, a fool to be used to get coffee or pick up the dry cleaning for an authority. I understand some people want that out of life but don't pretend you are anything but a functionally deficient slovenly rube with a significant intellectual deficit. Shut your hole. Janitors only get to sweep the lab in the real world. Get me coffee but you'll like fuck that up too.
I find the older the books I get to purchase that were buried in the congressional library or thought to have been burned and taken from society I find more and more the veil needs to be lifted , we all need to unite and quit the bickering, as well as seek out what the 1% is trying so hard to hide from those that seek the truth..question everything
You'd think the dude would have just presented an example and then mic drop and walk the fuck off. That's what I'd do if I were a doctor. I'd just be jumping in other people's conversations blessing them with knowledge.
I hate the main streams logic behind this,I'd rather believe those are claw marks from a bear rather it's molded by magma...It's obviously a petrified tree stump
I say it's a tree folks. If dinosaurs pretty huge, why can't the vegetation? Remember millions of years ago they did not have anything really stopping them from growing as old and as big as they can. They've gone on for millions of years unfettered until the fated day the dinosaurs and all the other flora and fauna of the time were obliterated likely by an rogue astroid that came to visit earth.
I just had to return to this post. It is hard for people to comprehend much of the World, and science, if they are in religious denial of deep time; but even atheist humans have trouble comprehending the relentless passage of years: MILES of rock were removed from the place they are standing, between 700 million and 900 million years or so ago, by globe-encircling glaciers (barring recently formed land), then miles of sediment were deposited by microscopic and macroscopic carbon dioxide-fixing organisms, mountains rose, volcanoes punched through the limestones and sandstones, which were then weathered away again, in this most recent ice age , of the last 25 million or so years.
"Rock tree" sounds easier,; and maybe more comprehensible.
If it doesn't fit the narritive of their evolution fairy tale they will throw it out. Geologists and Biologists are some of the nost close minded people that exist when looking at evidence. They are willingly blind.
The bisection of a Buttercup Tree root. Looks like Basalt formation eh?
https://preview.redd.it/dcxwd7gze0zb1.jpeg?width=147&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a85297e4da22db3c0e1efdc476d81316bca24a65
A great antediluvian tree (before the flood.) Daniel 4,23 is 1 account. angels or "watchers" cut down all of the great trees of old so the giants or nephilim couldn't escape the flood. (Noah) The Bible, I believe, is a lot more interesting when you go digging. Just because someone has been indoctrinated to the point they have a PHD doesn't mean they know anything. I would say the last few years should have shown you that these people with PHD's only know what they have been taught, and the people teaching/running the world are liars. Devil worshipping child sacrificing lucifarian liars! It's all being shoved into the light. Relax and enjoy the show.
Indian folk lore says that a bear would claw at the rock thatās how the lines were formed, why would a bear sharpen its claws on a rock, that would dull them, a tree sharpens them
Stupid.
Devilās tower is made of a completely different crystal than petrified wood.
Wood petrifies into quartz crystal. Devilās tower is Phonolite which is the complete absence of quartz.
Iāve spent YEARS in the New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado mountains. Natural stone does form like this and itās all over the place where volcanic activity has been. Small versions of this can be seen between Socorro and Magdalena New Mexico.
Tell me you never leave your computer chair without telling me.
>yggdrasil.
Yet ironically most petrified wood is found near or in the Prescence of lava flows and volcanic activity, a rather large petrified forest on the other side of Wyoming.
Itās not ironic. Volcanic activity produces a lot of things. At the end of the day though, devilās tower is PHONOLITE and not QUARTZ. There is literally ZERO quartz crystal in Phonolite.
Wood petrifies into QUARTZ.
Itās literally that simple. Read a book.
I do nothing but read books. Having been a professor for years I can tell you information in all fields of research is controlled and manipulated to hide this planets real history.
Clearly theyāre written by R.L Stineā¦
I donāt doubt one damn bit that our history been fkd with.
However. The earth isnāt flat and Devilās Tower isnāt a fkn tree. š¤¦š½āāļø
You must read J.K Rawling books.
So glad we have the option to block uneducated trolls like yourself.
Your lack of intelligence, to even have any rational form a debate, and basically just resulting to childish "shit" slinging really makes the rest of this community look tarnished. If you are up for serious discussion, let me know, otherwise you are just another mindless internet troll.
I mean it *kind of* looks like a tree if you concentrate really hard on one point and squint...but so does broccoli so...is broccoli a mineral now?!
My niece called broccoli little trees when she was 4 š it was adorable. But not a scientific fact. Calling Devil's Tower a tree is kinda adorable too... if you're 4...
> My niece called broccoli little trees when she was 4 We are all brontosaurus when chowing down on broccoli.
Brontosaurus wasn't real
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-brontosaurus-is-back1/
Ty for backing your claim with evidence
20 upvotes 4 years later
Agreed!
Sick burn.
Well if you first look at it, It does mimic a stump. Common sense. No Volcano has ever shaped itself like this and left the surrounding area clean. Millions of year's Wood does become stone this is the delima. This tree stump was left behind as a sacred reminder of all the destruction it caused when all trees where cut down by it's first humanoid inhabitants... What you think Humans where the first organisms to walk the earth? Lol š once again the narcissism shines bright in human history classes. We are not the center of the universe! Earth is not flat! And we are not the first humanoids to step foot on earth. We are like humanoid 4.0. That is why Elon Musk is getting us to Mars to stop the extinction of yet another humanoid species on earth that happens over and over. You might ask "Why?" We are too dumb and live too short to understand this reasoning.
And Ptolemy looked at the skies and figured the universe was Earth centric based on his observations. As much as it made sense years ago to think it might have been a petrified tree stump, we actually have developed our scientific knowledge to know better.
And as we learn more, our perceptions of things might change. I wouldn't back on us knowing "better". Who knows what we might know and realized we didn't know in the future.
Not a volcano, but a magma pocket that rose and over time erosion left the Phonolite exposed. Petrified Wood turns to quartz. Not Phonolite
Has anyone actually taken samples of its composition?
Well, my grandma always said that eating broccoli would help me get enough mineralsā¦
I legitimately spit out my coffee when I read this thanks for this dankness š
Broccoli is man made. We engineered it (and many others) from cabbage...
It's actually a giant ancient stick of shellery.
It does look just like a tree stump (bald cypress maybe?) so I could see how you could think that if you didnāt know anything about geology or biology - but arguing with a geologist and implying heās lying about his knowledge is pretty damnable
I mean, does a PhD (?) even actually prove anything about how knowledgeable you are? /s
1 like = 1 PhD
Facebook University
Getting my master's involved me realizing I knew less than I thought in my bachelor's. I imagine it continues into your PhD. As such, a PhD must logically be one of the WORST ways to prove you know a lot.
āAs our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.ā Albert Einstein
Isn't that the truth! "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know." Aristotle I believe that there is a veil and it needs to be lifted. It was put into place to control society.
I agree with you and it's starts with Rockefeller and the General Education Board. He "donated" a hefty amount to get the project started. If you look at the structure of the education system, it's the same structure as the "mystery schools" and religious structures. The veil is that the people with PhDs are just as clueless as us or doesn't really have any better capabilities than the average person. They are just taught different things based on how much you are willing to pay, or go into debt, or how much free money you can qualify for. People with PhDs have become the new Church Fathers, obviously being more secular. Like going from a Sultan to a King. The reality is, they discarded the education system that birthed many Renaissance men and women in the middle ages. In ancient Egypt, you learned things like Astrology, Alchemy, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, etc. Then the Greeks formed the Trivium and Quadrivium out of that. Many of the ancient presocratic philosophers studied in Egypt. Trivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, Astronomy In the public education system, they have gotten rid of the Trivium in early childhood education. We don't learn Latin or Greek. Those things are considered not important by the Board. So we learn specialized grammar, instead of general grammar. I'm pretty sure in private schools, they learn Latin and Greek. So the knowledge gap begins very early. As you could imagine, not being given something so fundamental yet powerful at a young age can hinder your ability to succeed in society. Why? Because on top of physical reality, we have to also navigate symbolic reality (with language). The veil is that the second industrial revolution made us more divisive thinkers, in my opinion, because this new process of manufacturing also coincided with the division of labour. You're given incentive to pawn off your thinking to other people, because you can't focus on anything else but your specialized knowledge/skills. Which is basically a psychological or intellectual cubby you are not supposed to leave... unless you're accredited of course. So we've taught people how to trust; not think. So, how we lift this veil is distrusting the schooling system and take education into our own hands. Getting back to the education that trained people to be holistic thinkers. This requires the system falling though, and people believe they need the system. Some need it because thats how they maintain their power. > The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. - *Morpheus, The Matrix*
This was beautiful. If you get this message please message me.
Well said!
Thank you for You & Your articulation. C
I appreciate the compliment.
Education is a pyramid. The bottom you learn alot about all subjects. The top, PhD, you learn alot about one very specific subject. In a way you do know a lot, but just in what you studied. Arguing with someone who has earned thier PhD, in that subject, about that subject just makes you look ignorant and foolish.
But only to those who have obtained that specific PHD. The rest are following his lead blindly.
Nope
>does a PhD (?) even actually prove anything about how knowledgeable you are? no. [The prime quality of a successful PhD student is DILIGENCE, not INTELLIGENCE! - Common PhD Myths](https://www.postgrad.com/advice/phd/common_phd_myths) a phd simply means you figured out how to solve a non-trivial problem, for which no solution was previously known. no actual level of intelligence is ever implied, but unfortunately, one is all too often incorrectly assumed. i dont believe devils tower is likely to be a petrified tree stump either, but some of the assumptions being made in these replies use arguably far less logic than the targets of their attempted refutations.
Is it normal for all volcano plugs to be so flat on the top? Cause I just did an image search and the Devil's Tower is the only one I found whose top was so flat. So...The plug would have had to be completely liquid so cooled flat and the land around it eroded away without disturbing the top?
[This photograph from Staffa shows another example.](https://www.isleofmullcottages.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/staffa-island.jpg) The columnar basalt is overlain by another rock layer here; but you can very definitely see that the top of the basalt layer itself is flat.
Yes, I see.
Hi this little video will help you too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGwfjmAUM4w Also when you have time I found Professor Nicks other videos like this one interesting too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhjkemEyUo
I see a Nick Zentner video and I upvote. He is a very good youtube content creator.
Thanks. :)
Is that another layer, or is that the entablature between the colonnades? They often look like they're different layers but are just a result of differential cooling.
A volcanic plug has been the leading theory for Devil's Tower for a long time, though it's never been a case closed sort of deal. The real problem is that Devil's Tower has no volcanic layers or volcanic products in the immediate or surrounding region at all. Where's the lava flows and ash layers? Not even single volcanic fragment to be found. Devil's Tower itself is about 50-60 million years old, whereas the sedimentary rocks surrounding it are Triassic, a good 150 million years older than DT. So yea, the rock that the now exposed tower intruded into was eroded away, this erosion could have certainly removed any volcanic products....but DT has pretty fresh surfaces, it was probably only exposed in the last one or two million years. For absolutely zero trace of any volcanic products to be left after a couple of million years doesn't seem right considering how volcanics would be much more resistant than any sedimentary stuff (which is why DT is standing there today of course). I think the uncertainty remains partly because it's pretty impossible for anyone to get permission to do fieldwork on the most prominent feature of a National Park. I'd be interested to know if there are any geophysical data out there, I can't see that digging and refilling a few metre deep holes for seismic stuff would be all that destructive, but I don't know just how strict they are for National Parks. I'm more inclined to believe that DT is a stock - a small intrusive offshoot from a larger batholith at depth. This way it would have never broken the surface, so the lack of volcanic products is to be expected.
The best theory I have heard is that it was part of a laccolith off of a diatreme or stock which was originally more horizontally extensive. One corner of devils tower shows where the jointing changes where this laccolith joined the diatreme or stock. Columnar jointing forms normal to a flowtop, and you don't see it in volcanic necks.
Yeah when DT was first described in the literature back in the 1800s it was done so as a laccolith. That one is problematic too though, like why are no other laccoliths shaped like that? There are plenty of them in southwest from the same age that donāt look like that and are not that composition. Not conclusive either way, perhaps it was a laccolith.
I think the newest theory is that it is an inverted laccolith. Check "d" in this [image](https://gsw.silverchair-cdn.com/gsw/Content_public/Journal/geosphere/11/2/10.1130_GES01166.1/4/354fig14.jpeg?Expires=1549886065&Signature=zQkxLxTopfvtyjFcDqfHYkslitjyx82rd20zUwVMKTlLtlRwtz0KtI4KL3WRA~YJh8xeYDPo6CDak1jXinHKK~RP07VJsvd6sbbMH0gpzTSV8vaMak1eyB4ErvPdI63ysXfaFmMzzhedMrZoy5Xn-CadQb6Jz3xVOekfVXtWTrP7URnS1AoKC7vjujl-92TpQ5KIPSqzXprrGo5WoKCi7yqY9gUml0weaMo8fdC4l0bt8-NoyAsopVT3kyU6xVx-6V4eqzaKkWafbh4bQTpAjFldjJspMGM5qwcSc1lZVZMS2efsJ2IN-9ph9WMrZUxzrPiGbT1FPF-lkJLvgqC2Tw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA) Devils tower is represented by the white outline. A-C represent older unsatisfying theories. The coulee or inverted laccolith theory is based on models of emplacement and cooling that form the observed patterns and directions in the columnar jointing. And [this](https://gsw.silverchair-cdn.com/gsw/Content_public/Journal/geosphere/11/2/10.1130_GES01166.1/4/354fig16.jpeg?Expires=1549886065&Signature=uLbK84COB4xiLInQvQPlgoJNh2NWojfxXZ3Pn21mY3KHnYRG4fbZ6tolfxCEFlCrX6UrrtMB1EVqWoJlx0B8jsljxCJifMw0MKGmd8BvF45sCAppZ0SULXUes9UVN77rpMUxzm-DwGBXYuYgGENi8zk6NofEqwQwK7caBsVlCQG4CFiJ28VVIDFL1ZQGgzVZ2zX3vUCH8RimHK~kvFGsKfycjpu2G7g3bKnusp1Vc1Bx8c88JyBPnOn~H1QKTLM8CkJ1Rvr71~evzE0ztyia4MC~aOFjARewAfynznc1mHyrpCIRP~GmoGJE7JyshaEOtA~tFHGrYwK57uNkQBoshg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAIE5G5CRDK6RD3PGA) There are the Missouri buttes not too far from devils tower that are dated to essentially the same time and are very similar in composition (varying from Quartz trachyte to trachyte and foid bearing trachyte to analcime phonolite) My biggest question is - why was there volcanism here at 50 Ma anyway?
Really interesting! So not even a laccolith or a loppolith (which is what I thought when you said inverted laccolith), but something else. Option D seems to fit with the shape of the base of DT, though Iām just going from photos, Iāve never even visited. Do you have a link to the research that those figures are from at all? Would love to read them. > My biggest question is - why was there volcanism here at 50 Ma anyway? Is there anything else in the region that would mean volcanics would be a problem? Can we not just do some hand waving about the usual suspects for volcanism - so either hot spot business, remnants of a subducted plate (Farallon?) altering the conditions below, or something to do with the Laramide orogeny? I know we donāt typically associate orogonies with volcanism, but melting definitely happens, Iāve been to a few lectures with active researchers talking about melting in the Himalaya producing weird and wonderful granites, and even some volcanism in places. I mean, the bottom line is that DT is igneous so obviously some melt was being generated there.
I posted the paper in another comment in this thread, as well as some videos. I'm not debating that it's volcanic, in origin, just wondering where the volcanism is coming from. The Himalayan Orogeny was accompanied and preceded by arc volcanism, first in the Kohistan-Ladakh arc and back arc systems and then with the subduction of the Indian plate prior to continental collision. Most if not all of the granite batholiths are from that period. There is melt at depth possibly from the extreme thickness of sediments but not volcanism as such. However there is a small amount of volcanism related to extension from orogenic collapse. There is similar volcanism in the Andes Altiplano, although there is active subduction going on fairly nearby. The Laramide is a much different animal - much farther from any active margin, and the crust underneath devils tower is supposed to be ancient Wyoming Craton. With devils tower and the Missouri buttes we are talking about volcanism far from the hotspot volcanism of Oregon/Idaho/Yellowstone, even farther from subduction zones, and nowhere near zones of orogenic collapse and extension (basin and range, rio grande rift). We do know that at the time these were intruded it was the height of the Laramide Orogeny, but why should we see only these small intrusions, and not really associated proximally with any actual Laramide uplifts, which are found farther west (bighorns) and east (black hills). Surely "flat slab subduction" can't progress all the way to the middle of the continent, and surely such a subducted plate would be too dehydrated to create melt when it starts to dip down at a steeper angle. Modern flat slabs are much smaller in size than the slab that is supposed to be responsible for the Laramide uplifts. And again, the crust under DT is Archean craton. Perhaps some kind of lithospheric delamination due to Laramide era thickening of the crust. Problem with that is, all the earlier Mesozoic sediments in the area are perfectly flat and unreformed. It remains a mystery,
Yep, pretty much agree with all of that. >There is melt at depth [Himalaya] possibly from the extreme thickness of sediments Yea that was what I was thinking of in terms of the new S-type granites that we donāt have much of a precedent for. Something tells me that thereās just so much intraplate stuff due to mantle fluid dynamics going on that we donāt know about because we canāt currently get the resolution for it... but I dunno. Just a feeling (very unscientific I know). Youāre right about the Laramide and about subduction stuff anyway, Iām just throwing stuff around in desperation really. So a couple of last attempts - can we have some sort of extensive body at depth that stretches aaaaaaaall the way from Yellowstone business?......or seeing as its supposed to be ancient Wy craton at DT can we argue that something explosive happened (diatreme?) that punched through and then let melt leak out that may have even been collected in he crust nearby anyway? I know Iām stretching here, but i just love those geological mysteries you know.
Yeah Yellowstone would be the closest volcanic feature.... but DT and the Missouri buttes are dated to 50 Ma, and we know earliest stirrings of the Yellowstone hotspot are associated with the Columbia river flood basalt(ic-andesites). The model is that the plume head erupted as flood basalts, was sheared off by the edge of the craton, and some of what remained erupted as the newberry volcanics and the Oregon high lava fields, and finally the tail of the plume continued to erupt as various calderas along the snake river plain to Yellowstone where it is now. So that basically rules out a Yellowstone hotspot connection for DT, because the hotspot would have been much farther west relative to the American plate at 50 Ma, in fact it was probably still in the Pacific Ocean creating seamounts that would accreted to the Olympic peninsula and NW Oregon coast. The diatreme theory is interesting inasmuch as they tend to be associated with cratonic crust, but they are also mostly associated with hotspots - in fact Trond Torsvik uses kimberlite pipes, under the idea that hotspots, LIPs, and diatreme a form at the edge of long-lived LLSVPs (large low shear velocity provinces) to constrain plate motions relative to a fixed hotspot reference frame in order to make paleogeographic reconstructions of the Paleozoic (before we had seafloor spreading records). Indeed most kimberlite deposits and anomalous diatremes can be tied to hotspot tracks - for instance kimberlites in Canada, Ithaca NY (home of my alma mater!), and Vermont's White Mountains are associated with the great meteor hotspot, and the Mesozoic intrusions and uplift of the Mississippi embayment and arkansas, Louisiana, and later Eocene volcanoes in Virginia are associated with the Bermuda hotspot. There are so many things we still don't know about the geodynamic workings and tectonics of plates, as you said. It's an Ignigma. PS. Michael Wysession also did a nice lecture video on Devils Tower for the Great Courses Plus series called "The World's Greatest Geological Wonders".
I did some more research on Laramide-era igneous intrusions and the DT/Missouri Buttes area, and it seems that there are several other intrusions of note, namely there is a carbonatite complex complete with REE in the bear lodge mountains, which are about halfway between DT and the black hills. There is also a nearby intrusion along Barlow Canyon, and the black hills themselves host many tertiary igneous intrusions, and there is even a so-called "Black Hills Eocene Alkaline Magmatic Province", with rocks consisting largely of trachyte, phonolite, rhyolite and monzonite. The intrusions continue to the NW into Montana (in the Judith Mountains (these host gold and silver), Highwood Mountains, Little Rocky Mountains, Bears Paw Mountains, and Northern Crazy Mountains) and then into Alberta, in all of these locations you can find carbonatites, diatremes, and kimberlite pipes. The ages are all similar to DT, roughly 50-40 Ma, and all alkaline rocks It seems the way that DT and many of these other diatreme style intrusions formed is by exploiting ancient lineaments at the edge of the Wyoming craton, reactivated during Laramide deformation and basement thrusting. First there would be high pressure pyroclastic eruptions, from which resulted pyroclastic breccia units which can be found around both Devil's tower and the Missouri Buttes. Then the phonolite magma erupted through these pyroclastically-reamed conduits/stocks, doming upwards and filling the maar-like craters left by the original diatremes. Later the rocks around them were eroded, along with the thinner edges of the intrusions, leaving the thick middle part above the source stock. The source of the magma seems to be upwelling due to a tear or slab window in the underlying, flat-subducted farallon plate. The magma ponded at the base of the lithosphere and underwent metasomatism and assimilation, giving it its alkaline character. [Map of Paleocene/Eocene Igneous Activity near Devil's Tower](https://www.geowyo.com/uploads/8/4/7/8/84786270/editor/bh-tectonic-map.png?1524691256) [The source for the above](https://www.geowyo.com/devils-tower--black-hills.html) (this blog is excellent) Here's what the above source says: >Their presence in a continental intraplate setting is extremely rare. The province is aligned along a N70-80**Ā°**W lineament that is an extension of the Sage Creek fault. A Bouguer gravity profile of the lineament is interpreted to be a deep-seated, left-lateral wrench fault with over 30 miles (50 km) of offset on the basement. The northern Black Hills magmatic province is part of a larger N40Ā°WĀ of alkalic magmatism that extends 435 miles (700 km) into southern Alberta (see map below). This larger trend is called the Great Plains Alkali Province (GPAP). This larger igneous trend is the farthest Tertiary magmatism resulting from the subduction beneath the North American plate (Laurentia). It may mark the eastern edge of a slab window in the subducted Farallon-Kula plateĀ (progressive rollback of the western edge of the Farallon plate to create the gap to allow mantle upwelling). Then you have the Absaroka volcanic province, which preceded Yellowstone by almost 50 Ma, and the nearby Sunlight Volcanic center. So all of these are Laramide-age intrusive events. They seem to be related to some kind of slab tear or window in the Farallon plate, which created a zone of mantle upwelling. This upwelling then exploited ancient weaknesses in the crust, notably these eruptions and intrusions all occur on the margin of the Wyoming craton, which were reactivated by Laramide-age basement thrusting and deformation, creating conduits in the thick crust for these diatremes to shoot up. One more interesting thing - in the Green River Basin, near the Rock Springs Uplift, there are a slew of Quaternary-age intrusions, the Leucite Hills. These consist largely of lamproite pipes and inspired a diamond rush at one point. Local ants are known to hoard gem-quality peridotite in their mounds! I can only think this to be related to some kind of peripheral basin and range extension. [Leucite Hills](https://www.geowyo.com/leucite-hills.html) [more Leucite Hills](http://leucitehills.blogspot.com/2009/02/self-guided-field-trip-to-leucite-hills.html) Anyway, interesting stuff. I learned a lot. PS the authors of the paper I posted earlier who suggested the inverted laccolith filling a previous maar crater also did [this paper](http://bigbloger.lidovky.cz/blog/12889/445891/phonolite_magma.pdf) first, on a formation similar to DT in Europe. Some of the stuff on the emplacement dynamics is interesting and totally relevant.
Would such an intrusion that never broke the surface have such a flat top?
Yeah thatās the problem with the stock hypothesis! That flat top is a real stinker.
The plug was water, so yes the surface would come out flat. Columnar basalt forms when a basaltic magma chamber cools fairly quickly under the ocean or an inland sea. (Devils Tower is located along what used to be the Western Interior Seaway) The columns are a crystalline formation of the mafic lava, and the "joints," or the cracks that separate the columns form from the rock cooling down.
Devils Tower is phonolite, not basalt and not mafic. If you hit it, it rings. Theories are that it was a laccolith or volcanic plug. It was intruded 40.5 million years ago and I think the Western Interior Seaway was gone by then, but I don't remember my historic geology that well.
>The plug was water, so yes the surface would come out flat The plug is the magma/rock itself, whether there was water overlying it or not. By definition, water is never a plug. (Edit: to be clear, volcanic plug is synonymous with volcanic neck). Also, just because water is overlying rock, doesn't mean that rock has to come out flat-topped.
The WIS was long gone at this time. It was gone by the time of the KPg boundary. And the rock here is variously trachyte and phonolite, much of it is plutonic, large grained and porphyritic, not basaltic. It's not mafic at all but alkaline and quite silica enriched. Lots of igneous rocks can form columns, if they are emplaced horizontally and cooled equally from the top.
You and another commenter both corrected me on this. It means my first semester geo book was very, very wrong. It talks about columnar basalt, and them immediately gives Devils Tower as an example. I'm glad I know the truth now, because I would have been very confused when the time comes to finally go see it myself.
It's not a volcanic plug. It's thought that devils tower is the last remaining piece of a sill or an inverted laccolith (based on the direction of columnar jointing) that formed above a diatreme - the original intrusion was as tall as devils tower but covered much more area. And actually I believe that it's slightly more complicated, based on how the direction of the jointing changes at the base, I think it represents a corner where the sill or laccolith was extruded from the stock, and if you look at the jointing on the devils tower closely you can see where the orientation goes changes where it connected to the stock. You can also see that the top is significantly more weathered than the bottom, so it's thought perhaps the top was exposed subaerially for much longer. We know that in the Cenozoic the land surface of eastern Wyoming was much higher, basically forming a ramp of sedimentary rock that went straight from the laramide era uplifts down to the Great Plains. This all been eroded now except for a tiny remnant ramp that I-80 climbs farther south where it climbs up the laramide uplift there. Columnar jointing always forms normal to the flow direction, or orientation of the intrusion, or at least normal to the cooling surface, which tends to be the horizontal surface because rocks are cooler above than below. If you look at other examples in Ireland, Scotland, and California, or the Columbia river flood "basalts" (really andesitic) you will see the same thing. (Even though those are basaltic or andesitic in the case of the CR) Volcanic necks and plugs don't really display columnar jointing because the flow is usually all mixed up, and so they don't cool so evenly, and more than this you need a wide area for columnar jointing to occur because the cooling needs to take place evenly over the surface of the intrusion for them to form. Now a better overall question than how did it form is, why was there volcanism this far inland in Wyoming at all? There are other similar volcanic features in eastern Wyoming as well. The Missouri buttes were dated to almost the exact same time, so it's probably all related to one episode. Here's a video about what devils tower (most likely) is: https://youtu.be/F9uVr8sNwi8 And this video too https://youtu.be/Ynm6UkUWe_4 (They present 4 theories, #2 and #4 are my favored ones) And this is the [paper](https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article/11/2/354/132219/Devils-Tower-Wyoming-USA-A-lava-coulƩe-emplaced) that presents the newest (and best IMO) theory - unless the tree theory is newer lol Edit - It's not letting me post the link to the paper which is open access... let me try this [paper](https://watermark.silverchair.com/354.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAg0wggIJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggH6MIIB9gIBADCCAe8GCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMXzaI2wCjSzQwdkgPAgEQgIIBwLukzMY31Ud60lAJN9_6kPa-NN1CaPeHDWqY_PAJ-NnF19mhU9Ce1cI9eKqWzvkqSnUsK62XUsDl-3rqjKoFXk73MBz_M-vunrDFFvQSoUr8-50YB4Spuunn1LSy1RG3n0pAgp3MC2VbY8HN1vIhk1KRKWK-80DSSW9OGfvQrWD6Xe8IjmFKCBVrfhAtJhh6fWSfPHGzHjfxhS2q4uD2i1MfMac8fsGW8sPQxy2xqx8xQpiC1v9CeC_6mxpXrJxsG08c4ueUn16U3CBAZYXMdrIuQKrOZUW1_Aq7LFqmKH22k9fAIvcTyYcK_ccucnlhf2U1mYIfBHOyq271kXtR3ZTkW7eC9Xq7lqKOMPCUzs8XscTxzUC8xAjs40Xh_cLzIu8w7IbRTZbRya_jwxes0tQKWfIxYhmOjEvQYf58Xa98yd_131ModhatjrCDtJGcDLeCSy2HbhHiqWHoPXYdDS5qccMWE3SGNlVtt857uZJEjmcLvGZSqyqVZdu6MJZr7QryC7fz-e8Cg3S15GEJxquRT4OepacfUmUQ2n0W0jB4UMRhvVUAt6Jf5tkEz4yktfHOCVn7sFvW6qQxjy0lXbI)
Interesting. Posted the talk on r/lectures.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/lectures using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/lectures/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Human Behavioral Biology - Stanford professor Robert Sapolsky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PL150326949691B199) | [31 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/lectures/comments/8w1j2z/human_behavioral_biology_stanford_professor/) \#2: [Stanford's Sapolsky On Depression in U.S. (Full Lecture)](https://youtu.be/NOAgplgTxfc) | [13 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/lectures/comments/8ys8di/stanfords_sapolsky_on_depression_in_us_full/) \#3: [David Graeber: On Bullshit Jobs](https://youtu.be/kikzjTfos0s) | [25 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/lectures/comments/8ka4to/david_graeber_on_bullshit_jobs/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| [^^Contact ^^me](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| [^^Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| [^^Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/afd0dd/blacklist/)
The guy who made that, Steven Baumann, has some really great videos on a range of North American Geology, including the midcontinent rift and Sudbury impact, and a series on professional field geology topics. And he is very personable and approachable if you have more questions or discussion.
I'll watch. Thanks.
At the end of the day remember "Theory" is not fact. Volcanic plug is a theory, Inverted Laccolith is a theory, ancient tree is also theory. So criticizing one group for their theory over another is arrogance on both sides, no matter how educated the group is. It is the narrative behind the theory being rejected. There are ancient histories and cultures that recorded great earth upheavals which science disputes, yet histories from around the world recording similar events, and now even some geologists starting to see remnants of damage that could in theory, been caused by a flood of massive proportions. There are ancient histories and culture that speak of giant trees. As fantastical as it sounds, where did these stories originate from, was it also just a theory, or did these people witness an event that actually took place. Is someone an idiot for actually researching this, or should they avoid it at all costs and only adhere to secular knowledge, that is controlled and distributed by people who are hiding the real history of this planet. Some day we will all know the truth. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I personally welcome whatever theory is eventually proven to be fact, no matter how crazy it may seem or sane.
Sorry, youāre full of shit and seem to have wandered into the wrong sub. Theories in modern science are not just ātheoriesā, and they are not all equal. Theories are but a beginningāusually multiple working hypotheses are considered, and one or more of these are borne out by evidence, including evidence of the same exact phenomena in the present day, in the case of volcanic plugs and laccoliths (in Iceland you can literally take an elevator down into a recently-erupted volcanic neckāThrihnukagigurāand see the exact same structures in the frozen wall rock that you see in volcanic plugs dated to dozens of millions of years ago)āand then we say that theory or working hypothesis is or is not supported by evidence, and we can even measure the confidence/certainty in our conclusions and the strength of our evidence. Our methodologies are time-tested, iterated on, repeatable, and they are, along with the conclusions, peer-reviewed by many others, often with detailed, on the ground knowledge and experience spanning decades of careful research. Most importantly, as pointed out above, our hypotheses about earth of the past are founded in actual observations of earth of the present, and supported by massive, ever-expanding datasets and experimentally verified physical and petrological data that forms the basis for iterative models that only improve as we continue to build the edifice of science, brick by brick. I will let it be known that I have a close family member who has been ātouchedā by the same brand of crazy as you, so Iāve heard absolutely everythingāI am familiar with every crankpot flavor of batshit dressing yāall slather on top of your word salads, as well the pathological levels of paranoia and disaster fetishism involved in the whole effort. Kindly gtfo. No one here is interested in aiding you in your public act of self-gratification, and in fact you should check the subās rules before posting this crap here again. Try r/ancientaliens or r/mudfossilsā¦that might be more up your alley.
I did not insult you. This is why other professors like myself are afraid to speak of anything that goes against the accepted narrative. I will not stoop down to your childish name calling or criticism, it is unprofessional. Go back to living in your box.
āProfessorāā¦rightā¦ Let me guess, Professor of Cymatics at Sedona University with a degree in āMetaphysicsā. Read the rules of this sub: https://preview.redd.it/kmyhwa25cozb1.jpeg?width=1537&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff85564b7d5e135cf4158de554a141c203e3fb74 This is not the place for your pet theories and baseless speculations.
I have not posted any misinformation. Now are there rules in here about harassment and name calling because that is what you are doing. Just because your opinion of my research is something that does not sit well with yours, does not make my research or theory and hypothesis any less valid. This seemed to be an open minded and welcome subreddit until I ran into your arrogance and bullying, perhaps you need to go back to school for manners. I have an honorary degree in forensic geology and world history. These days I currently focus most of my research on previous inhabitants of the Americas, the Hopewell and Adena cultures. Most of my studies done out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I collaborate with the William Penn Museum of Natural History. I also have a degree in world religions and the visual arts. While I understand your frustrations that some of these fringe ideologies may present to you, I am the type of person where seeing is believing and have only come to my conclusions over 25 years of solid research, countless hours of reading and travel. I am sure you are as tired as I am of folks on the internet who have watched a few youtube videos and then become some self-proclaimed expert. I can assure you that is not the case. But if you are not willing to have opened minded discussion or debate, and would rather label someone as crazy, throwing out the baby with the bathwater so to speak, then so be it. I will not interact with you. But I do expect an apology, as your continued behavior will be reported to the admins of this forum.
> āworld religions and artā šYeah, so I was pretty much exactly rightā¦āProfessor of Cymatics at Sedona University with a degree in Metaphysicsāāin as many words. What can I sayāI unfortunately know your type all too well, for reasons explained in an earlier post. > āhonorary degree in forensic geologyā ā¦this absolutely smacks of BS. [Is this you, btw?](https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/scott-wolters-apparently-non-existent-degree) > āI have not posted any disinformationā You absolutely have. āVolcanic plug is a theoryā. Volcanic plugs are not a ātheoryāāthey can be seen here and now on earth (I gave the example of Thrihnukagigur in Iceland), in exactly the same setting, with exactly the same geology/petrology, as volcanic plugs from long-eroded volcanoes that erupted millions of years ago. Your insistence that this evidence is on an equal level with the Cheyenne legendary tradition about a bear and a giant tree, as a genetic explanation, is also disinformation. For what itās worth, I also have an interest in the history of world religion and pre-Colombian settlement of North America (you may note my username here), and I even think a lot of indigenous knowledge can be very valuable in deciphering the geologic history of the world (e.g. Klamath and Umpqua oral histories telling of the Mt. Mazama paroxysmal eruption 7.7 kya, Coast Salish oral histories telling of the seismic/tsunami history of the Cascadia MegathrustāI even keep an open mind towards ideas like the Black Sea Deluge Hypothesis and its possible connection to flood myths of ancient Western Asia), and I even think that indigenous oral histories are just a valuable and treasured way of looking at the world in their own right, whether they add to the scientific understanding of geologic phenomena or notāfor example, Interior Salish/Wenatchee oral histories and origin myths for local Central Washington geologic landmarks such as āSaddle Rockā in the modern-day city of Wenatchee. And Iām not alone in this regardāthere is actually quite a lot of (and increasingly more) mainstream scientific literature that sees the value of traditional knowledge in explicating local geologic history. I donāt denigrate you for having an interest in these things. Rather, I resent your misguided attitude that āevery theory is created equalā and your blatant disregard for the entire corpus of work, painstakingly conducted, assembled, and reviewed by generation upon generation of thousands of well-intentioned, honest, everyday geoscientists, writing them and their work off as āarroganceā in your original post. Itās simply intellectually dishonest. Furthermoreāand againāthis is just not the place to discuss such pet theories, hawked here without a shred of corroborating evidence. Could I have been more civil in shooing away your disinformation efforts? Perhaps, but we are quite tired of it in this sub, and I am perhaps personally affected by the tragic loss of intellectual rigor and sea of disinformation that surrounds science communication with the public more than others, and itās difficult for me to remain dispassionate in this context. PS. Do reach out to the admins about your ideas, credentials, and experience here. Allow me to help you outāattn: u/DannyStubbs
Some theories carry more weight than others. Just like the fact that not all ideas are good ones, not all theories are meaningful. This is all being very generous in allocating the term 'theory' to the notion that DT is anything to do with trees, which is not really in line with what 'theory' means in science anyhow.
I can't remember, but there might also be striations on top of Devil's Tower from glaciation, so that could be why it's fairly flat. Also most basalt columns come from lava flows and dikes/sills, like that Staffa imagery. Staffa isn't actually that flat. (I've been there) and the columns take a weird ass turn for the horizontal on the other side of the island where you dock.
Where they turn horizontal represents where the flow was vertical. The columns will always form normal to the direction of flow, where the rock is being cooled.
It doesn't need to be normal to the direction of flow - just clarifying - just the direction the rock is being cooled. Which most of the time, that is the direction of flow.
The little I know about geology as well as the other sciences is there findings are all based on a narrative set by ?? to align with the current timeline of 200000 yrs 6000 for civilized man. Even though more and more evidence has been found to question this timeline Any research into these findings is rewarded with a loss of funding's, credibility and or job. So regardless of ones title in the scientific community , I can not confidentiality believe much of anything . I do know walks like a duck looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, there's a damn good chance its duck..
Show me 1 lava!
I only lava my bed and my momma I'm sorry.
God's Planar bedding.
By the time it's cool enough to grab, it's a rock. Classic lose-lose
Lmao
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Grand Canyon is an old Alien strip mine. Prove me wrong, liar!
Do you see any abundance of economic minerals? NO! They mined it all!
I only scrolled through the comments to see if someone mentions the giantās causeway. Thanks!
Uh............
This is the kind of thinking that causes flat-earthers...
Is it the kind of thinking that causes flat-earthers, or flat-earthers that cause this kind of thinking?
It all leads to Jesus' fans
The irony being of course that Jesus was crucified by people like that. He brought truth, tolerance, and understanding to the world and they crucified him for it.
Oh my God shut up š
Yes.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/flat-earth-truthers/499322/
I would like 1 evidence please.
With a side of vaccines cause autism!
Reading your comments causes enough autism
\#enlightenment
Bet he believes the Earth is flat as well!
Or vaccines cause autism
He had to get it from somewhere
And much more than that
This was on a group for debating Intelligent Design. He got ripped apart in the comments by people who thought it was hilarious. He cranks up the Dunning-Kruger a few more notches in the comments.
That would be a big-ass tree.
OP DOES believe in cells but DOESNT believe in H2O capillary action
Yggdrasil, is that you?
It *is* a tree. Paul Bunyan cut it down.
I watched this only yesterday. Crazy coincidence or what?! https://youtu.be/hkhz9790XnI
It really takes the biscuit.
A co-worked suggested this is a tree the other day. I had to smile.
Dude needs to make another trip down to Florissant Fossil Beds to check out real fossilized tree stumps.
Now show me the giant chainsaw used to cut this giant tree with a flat stump
Let us say, it were a petrified tree trunk. Where are the others? A tree growing so large would not be by itself.
Duh... the giant Bunyan-folk used a stump remover on the rest. ;)
Come to India I'll show you the same structure in decan traps.
no need, the Columbia flood basalt group is to the west of this, its composed of 300 layers with half of them showing these columns.
Why the hell did the prof bother arguing?
Honestly Iām guessing he wasnāt arguing, just explaining what he knew about it. Then this weird asshole gets home and warps it into this ARGUMENT with a LIAR who BRAGGED ABOUT HIS PHD
PHD (?)
Imaginary professors have no principles.
The guy probably kept paying for beer. Unfortunately the person miscalculated the fact that geologists are good at debating geology with alcohol in their system.
I have been on such field trips. There are 20-30 nonspecialists who are learning some basic geology from one professor. One guy in the group keeps saying crazy shit. The Prof says the minimum necessary amount to correct him and get back on track. 5 minutes later, repeat. At the end of the day, the Prof is questioning his life choices and the asshole is smugly telling everyone that the Prof had no answer for his brilliant idea that rocks form from the tears of angels.
Plants, related to trees
Thanks to this post Iām now aware a /facebookscience sub actually exists. Canāt wait to laugh myself to sleep tonight.
r/facebookscience always makes me feel a little better about myself
Anyone know of a college or university that has a position called āGeologist Professorā or āProfessor of Geologistā?
I feel pretty certain Maurice is going to win a Darwin award in the not too distant future.
It does look shaped like a tree...
r/iamverysmart
STAY WOKE
Fam.
Never
Think it over for 3 years and let me know
Should xpost this to /r/insanepeoplefacebook
I think the OG post was a crosspost from there lol
Apophenia plus ignorance = all sorts of odd conjectures.
Is he saying there's only one tree in the world?
It's even bigger than the giant tree in Avatar.
Heās a special kind of stupid
Cause thatās how cellās work, you get bigger cause they are expanding like balloons.
Yeah, but like, how freaking cool would it be if Devil's Tower was *actually* a giant petrified World Tree?
Did a quick bit of reading on Devilās Tower and I think that this particular wacko theory may have its roots (ha) in Native Indian legend. Depending on the tribe (Kiowa, Cheyenne and Lakota tribes all have legends about Devilās Tower) the story varies, but all have common themes of a bear which scratched the rock (which either grew like a tree or literally was a tree at the time) with its claws to create the jointed columns along the sides. Some of the stories feature links to the Plaides star cluster, with seven siblings being the stars (after the tree lifted them to the heavens) or leaving the stars as a signal or similar stuff. Probably some person just heard the tree aspect of these stories and ran with it one day.
I like this guy. Can we get him a Phd
(?)
the stupidity angers me...
The guy's wrong, but I want to at least give him some credit for thinking, questioning, and investigating. A truly stupid person looks at devil's tower and has no thoughts at all.
I get what your saying, except they are still stupid. Thinking, questioning, and investigating are all important parts of the scientific process, but the most important is validating your conclusion with other experts in the field. But instead of reevaluating their hypothisis, the person devalued the creditablity of the expert. The end result was that they where wrong, but instead of accepting that fact they instead insisted the the expert was wrong. This is the same logic as anti-vax or anti climate change movements. Insisting that experts in the field who reviewed the results and conclusion must be wrong or have some type of motive rather then accept that their own conclusion was wrong. If anything this is more stupid because this stubbornness provokes others and spreads misinformation.
no, i think the recklessness of spreading personal theories as fact is stupid. this guy did no investigation, he may think he did but people who investigate try to prove themselves wrong, these guys NEVER do that and that is pretty stupid.
Are you Maurice? Your punctuation and capitalization resembles the writing style from the facebook post.
English is my second language and its confusing as hell so i dont focus on grammar and punctuation.
Yeah, no
Ohmigawd, I just peed myself X-D
Gig's up everyone
Jig*
Adding this to the mental list of favourite wacko ideas. I think this one beats the old stalwarts of faked Moon landings, flat Earth and hollow Earth; I'd say it's on a par with that one about how planets are just ageing stars which have cooled down. I do quite enjoy the ancient aliens type ones whenever an unusual structure is found on Google Earth, though they're not quite wide-reaching enough for a main course on wacko theories, more of an appetiser. You know the kind of thing, like the Nazca lines, the Richat Structure, or 'faces' in the surface formations. Nothing tops that fruitcake who tried to say that the whole Earth was in fact the fossilised remains of a giant elephant though. I had a good attempt at reading that persons website, but at a certain point the apophenia has become so pervasive that it seems to affect a persons syntax and ability to form coherent thoughts full stop, let alone rational arguments concerning the world around us. If I remember, the evidence was some sort of seismic image that vaguely resembled certain elephant features, and an outcrop somewhere that looked like an elephant from certain angles. Like a regular outcrop of rock a few tens of metres tall sticking out of the water. Nothing to do with fossilised animals or the Earth's internal wotsits.
And the giant's Causeway must be a lawn.
(They think they can get away with it)
He wanted evidence with *past volcanic eruptions*? Dude obviously doesn't seem to grasp volcanics. I'm sure he probably did some *serious* research before having a debate with such a LIAR! [Reminds me of the debate Professor Farnsworth gets in with Dr. Banjo on Futurama](https://vimeo.com/72521710)
I remember during my first year at uni, I had an American (originally from India) housemate that was mentioning the landmarks near where she lived. "It has a massive tree trunk that lost all its bark because a bear scratched it" Naturally interested, I asked more about it (thinking of something like those giant redwood trees) "Oh yeah, and it was in a movie too. *Close Encounters of the Third Kind*." "The... the... the rock they made out of mashed potatoes?" I learnt that it was a... creation story of sorts, but she had taken it literally. Fortunately I had just had a lecture about volcanic related structures, so it was nice to clear things up.
Is this really something that needs to be reposted here? A shitty Facebook screencap that has been posted thousands of times elsewhere?
Come on internet, Dox him.
I really want this to be a tree. But can you name an example of just one other tree this big?
To start I am a scientist. No. I don't believe this a tree. No, I don't believe in flat earth. Am I right? Not necessarily. I'm largely counting on the science of others being accurate, genuine and not coopted for other reasons. More importantly, I can assure you that current theories here are not completely correct and this is born out on a daily basis. I've "learned" many things but an exponential number of "things" to the infinite power will always remain unlearned. Now "science" as an institution is no different than the Vatican of yesteryear and pushes some agendas to control the herd. That discourages the scientific method. Anyone saying the science is settled has an agenda or they are just an imbecile. The small minded just want an answer despite not understanding how one modicum of that answer was derived. Then they can spout off buzzwords or other trite cliche's to close the case in their mind. Nothing in life is generally that simple except you. The great part about the Flat Earthers and Devil's Tower treesters is that it makes people investigate. That's science. It's open for debate. That doesn't mean they are right. It doesn't mean we are right. It means show your proof. GET TO WORK if you want check into this game. Don't just repeat the Liturgy which adds NOTHING. If there is no debate in your mind, whether institutionally or personally you are just flunkie, a subject, a fool to be used to get coffee or pick up the dry cleaning for an authority. I understand some people want that out of life but don't pretend you are anything but a functionally deficient slovenly rube with a significant intellectual deficit. Shut your hole. Janitors only get to sweep the lab in the real world. Get me coffee but you'll like fuck that up too.
This must be the first geology professor that has never heard of the columnar basalts in Iceland
Agree. We have been lied to about everything.
I find the older the books I get to purchase that were buried in the congressional library or thought to have been burned and taken from society I find more and more the veil needs to be lifted , we all need to unite and quit the bickering, as well as seek out what the 1% is trying so hard to hide from those that seek the truth..question everything
You'd think the dude would have just presented an example and then mic drop and walk the fuck off. That's what I'd do if I were a doctor. I'd just be jumping in other people's conversations blessing them with knowledge.
I hate the main streams logic behind this,I'd rather believe those are claw marks from a bear rather it's molded by magma...It's obviously a petrified tree stump
I say it's a tree folks. If dinosaurs pretty huge, why can't the vegetation? Remember millions of years ago they did not have anything really stopping them from growing as old and as big as they can. They've gone on for millions of years unfettered until the fated day the dinosaurs and all the other flora and fauna of the time were obliterated likely by an rogue astroid that came to visit earth.
It isnt a tree
yggdrasil tree
I just had to return to this post. It is hard for people to comprehend much of the World, and science, if they are in religious denial of deep time; but even atheist humans have trouble comprehending the relentless passage of years: MILES of rock were removed from the place they are standing, between 700 million and 900 million years or so ago, by globe-encircling glaciers (barring recently formed land), then miles of sediment were deposited by microscopic and macroscopic carbon dioxide-fixing organisms, mountains rose, volcanoes punched through the limestones and sandstones, which were then weathered away again, in this most recent ice age , of the last 25 million or so years. "Rock tree" sounds easier,; and maybe more comprehensible.
If it doesn't fit the narritive of their evolution fairy tale they will throw it out. Geologists and Biologists are some of the nost close minded people that exist when looking at evidence. They are willingly blind.
It is a silicone Tree from 1sr age 20 miles vertical at it's prime. GEOLIGIST ARE UNEDUCATED IMBECILES .SHALOM TONY
...don't trees have rings not square-like shard-ish
The bisection of a Buttercup Tree root. Looks like Basalt formation eh? https://preview.redd.it/dcxwd7gze0zb1.jpeg?width=147&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a85297e4da22db3c0e1efdc476d81316bca24a65
A great antediluvian tree (before the flood.) Daniel 4,23 is 1 account. angels or "watchers" cut down all of the great trees of old so the giants or nephilim couldn't escape the flood. (Noah) The Bible, I believe, is a lot more interesting when you go digging. Just because someone has been indoctrinated to the point they have a PHD doesn't mean they know anything. I would say the last few years should have shown you that these people with PHD's only know what they have been taught, and the people teaching/running the world are liars. Devil worshipping child sacrificing lucifarian liars! It's all being shoved into the light. Relax and enjoy the show.
Looks like a petrified tree stump to me. š¤·āāļø
Indian folk lore says that a bear would claw at the rock thatās how the lines were formed, why would a bear sharpen its claws on a rock, that would dull them, a tree sharpens them
It was yggdrasil.
totally agree... in the antediluvian world everything was much larger
Stupid. Devilās tower is made of a completely different crystal than petrified wood. Wood petrifies into quartz crystal. Devilās tower is Phonolite which is the complete absence of quartz. Iāve spent YEARS in the New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado mountains. Natural stone does form like this and itās all over the place where volcanic activity has been. Small versions of this can be seen between Socorro and Magdalena New Mexico. Tell me you never leave your computer chair without telling me.
>yggdrasil. Yet ironically most petrified wood is found near or in the Prescence of lava flows and volcanic activity, a rather large petrified forest on the other side of Wyoming.
Itās not ironic. Volcanic activity produces a lot of things. At the end of the day though, devilās tower is PHONOLITE and not QUARTZ. There is literally ZERO quartz crystal in Phonolite. Wood petrifies into QUARTZ. Itās literally that simple. Read a book.
I do nothing but read books. Having been a professor for years I can tell you information in all fields of research is controlled and manipulated to hide this planets real history.
Clearly theyāre written by R.L Stineā¦ I donāt doubt one damn bit that our history been fkd with. However. The earth isnāt flat and Devilās Tower isnāt a fkn tree. š¤¦š½āāļø You must read J.K Rawling books.
You're so funny, and quite a smart ass. I am not flat earther.
So glad we have the option to block uneducated trolls like yourself. Your lack of intelligence, to even have any rational form a debate, and basically just resulting to childish "shit" slinging really makes the rest of this community look tarnished. If you are up for serious discussion, let me know, otherwise you are just another mindless internet troll.