How Lava and Ice Shaped the Perfect Columns of Devils Postpile NM in California

[@shawnwillsey]

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[@kmh20061]

Within easy walking distance from the Postpile is Rainbow Falls. One of the best Sierra waterfalls outside Yosemite Valley which flows over the columns.

[@zemtek420]

I was just looking at that.

[@Rachel.4644]

Oh, so fun! The columns are beautifully similar. As usual, you help us see the not-so-obvious features (glacial scarring). Thank you so much, Shawn!

[@Riverguide33]

Another wonderful stop on our geologic tour! Thanks, Shawn. 👍

[@carnakthemagnificent336]

Busy summer for you, Professor Willsey. The Eastern Sierra is such a dramatic region for its beauty and history. Gracias for your videos.

[@corrinneloudon525]

What an amazing place! Thank you from bringing us here, Shawn.

[@davidk7324]

Neat to see evidence of two of the major geologic processes (glacial ice and lava) in the same place, separated by eons. I didn't even think of glacial striations when you mentioned a special surprise at the beginning. The columns are reminiscent of those on HWY 21 just east of Boise and north of the river. I doubt there are glacial features on the Idaho site, however.

[@vintagelady1]

I have seen this on travel shows, but never in such detail---it really seems impossible that it's not manmade, it's so perfectly fitted, as you said, like a mosaic. Quite magical, & learning how it was done makes it even more wonderful. Thanks!

[@TerryBollinger]

Amazing intro view! Those columns, especially the wavy ones on the left! I would love to see that in person. The polished hexagonal "floor tiles" at the top are equally amazing!

[@briane173]

It's literally awe-inspiring. When I first visited DP as a kid I was just incredulous that such a perfect symmetry could be shaped not by man but by volcanic, tectonic, and climatic forces on such a scale.

[@kmm129]

I really loved Devil's Postpile when I was a kid. Never forgot.

[@hestheMaster]

There is enough geology up there to keep you busy for a month Shawn. Thanks for showing it.

[@footballct14]

been coming here every year for my whole life! glad to know you’ve finally visited. when I think of geology, Devil’s Postpile is the first thing that comes to mind. I ❤️ CA

[@briane173]

That plus Earthquake Fault and Hot Creek were the two places I visited as a kid in the early 70s when we moved to Mammoth Lakes that heightened my awareness of volcanic and tectonic activity there; it was only 40-some years later, when I got interested in the Long Valley caldera, that I was struck by the sheer size and complexity of the geology there. That area is what got me interested in geology as a discipline, realizing decades later that our condo and cabin was essentially built upon a supervolcano, as well as a mountain range that continues to uplift. I'm now continually fascinated by the tectonic forces taking place all along the Cordillera, and what it has done to create the awesome beauty of the mountains all up and down the coast.

[@jackprier7727]

Thanks, the glacier-striated pavement of column-tops is especially fascinating-

[@briane173]

You have no idea how SLICK it is up there either. My first visit it was like walking on an ice rink with regular shoes; but the symmetry of the columns was so precise you could swear somebody came in and just laid tile down instead of these tall basalt columns.

[@shawnwillsey]

Very true. Slick surface. @@briane173

[@stevewhalen6973]

Thanks! Beautifully organized column tops ❤

[@stevewhalen6973]

Beautifully organized column tops !

[@leslie3832]

OMGosh. We drove right up there about three years ago and the site was closed under repair, so never got to see these! And the gloriously flat glacial-striated top surface. Thanks tons.

[@brianpeers]

Thanks

[@steveb3553]

Thanks!

[@LisaBelleBC]

OMGosh! I am soooo jealous! You go to the most amazing places! Thanks for sharing. As always amazing insight!

[@cynergy4]

One of the most beautiful places on the planet! Been camping there in Red's Meadow a couple of times and created some truly amazing memories. Climbed to the top of the postpile and then hiked down to Rainbow Falls. At times sharing the trail with bears, more types of wildflowers to count, numerous un-named little creeks and crystal clear small lakes. So much to explore in the area including June Lake loop, Mono Lake and craters, Bodie Ghost Town, Hot Creek, Convict Lake etc. Fascinating moraines and so many other land features. Thank you for sharing, it's been too many years since my last visit. Have you explored Fossil Falls down by Little Lake? Redrock Canyon (Ricardo) is another favorite place. I had the immense honor and privilege to go on a couple of field trips with Dr. Bob Sharp from Caltech, some of the best memories of my life!

[@mountainpride]

That's not to far south of me. I went there 25 yrs ago but never walked to the top. Thanks for the video it gave me something to do this weekend and that is to go check them out again and actually walk up on top.

[@3xHermes]

Earth's amazing processes! Great Video!

[@1000YearHomes]

Enjoy your videos Shawn. I hate how pioneers always put "devil" in front of anything cool. Devil's Tower, Devil's Bathtub, Devil's Postpile. We should rename all these by their Native American names - it would be less ignorant I bet. Every time I go visit something cool I roll my eyes at "devil this and devil that".

[@cameddy4081]

Very cool video - similar , obviously, to Devils tower in Wyoming and the Giants causeway in N Ireland - some put forward the case for electrogeological origins regarding some of these mountain structures , the cosmic thunderbolt as it were - wondering what your take on a possible rapid formation of these basalt columns is as the mixing of the volcanic basalt with the granite seems somewhat anomalous? Just a curious question ? Thanks for your videos 🙏

[@shawnwillsey]

Agreed

[@Joe-Skier]

Agreed. Hell's canyon is another one

[@GaryDeWitt-t6p]

My favorite rock formation, thanks for the new, detailed view.

[@jonerlandson1956]

great tour!.... i started thinking about Buckminster Fuller and M.C. Esher....

[@AKUSUXs]

That is so amazing! There is a place about 25 miles to the northeast of Lewiston (past Kendrick, ID) that has a smaller version of these basalt columns. There are some places around the Lewiston and Inland Northwest that use these columns as landscaping, fountains and other things

[@shawnwillsey]

Yes, lots of good columns in Pacific Northwest.

[@InSurrealtime]

I used to love camping there and soaking in the hot spring.

[@mustangmorris53]

Very enjoyable , Geologic time fascinates me.

[@briane173]

That entire area fascinates me. It's the place that got me so immersed in geology generally. I'd lived there for a couple years in the early 70s, not knowing just how active the place was. Only discovered that about 40 years later, and I was just awestruck. I've been to most of the geologic sites in the Long Valley area, though I've not toured the Inyo-Mono Craters. It was only about 10 years ago that I realized just how many maars, cinder cones, tuff rings, obsidian and rhyolite domes there are, in such a perfect line from Mammoth Mtn to Mono Lake. I'll have to visit again just to take all that in.

[@nicklasschmltt6959]

Awesome building blocks.

[@lonthrall5613]

Very interesting! Thanks for the presentation!

[@garrettmillsap]

Beautiful location. Thank you for sharing

[@loisrossi841]

So much to see, thank you.

[@judsonclayto7813]

Nice one. I only spent an hour there… now I have a reason to go back to see that glacial polish…

[@williammaceri8244]

The Devil's Postpile is one of my favorite places. I was just 7 years old when my family went to see them in 1962. Further up Minneret Road from Mammoth Mountain. Then down a winding dirt road that in most places is just one lane. I have been back many times since, and the road hasn't changed one bit The shapes of columns are incredibly all the same, most have 8 sides. It gets even better. If you take a short hike to the top of the columns, you will see the shape of the columns continue all the way up with a little bit of grass growing in between each one. It looks like a beautiful tile floor. A little bit further down the path is Rainbow Falls, which is the beginning, but not the headwaters of the Merced river. The ground surrounding Mammoth Mountain is covered with small rocks made of pumice and obsidian, the shiny black glass, Indians used to make arrows with. From Mammoth Lakes to Mono Lake in my opinion is one of the top most interesting and beautiful places on earth . There are too many more wonders in the Eastern Sierras to name here. I've seen the Town of Mammoth Lakes grow from a tiny little rural mountain town to a great little city the offers everything you need. Back in the early 60s hardly anyone had been to or heard of. It was the skiing in the mid to late 60s that made Mammoth so popular. Mammoth Mountain is my favorite ski resort in the country, better than both Utah and Colorado, which are both great, if that gives you an idea.

[@DavidHuber63]

Awesome! thank you, Brother.

[@patrickkillilea5225]

Awesome. That is a spot I have been to. The Obsidian Dome is just down the hill. I bet you will have a video there too?

[@briane173]

There's enough geology there to keep Shawn there for a month. That area from Bishop Tuff all the way to Mono Lake is perhaps my favorite place in California, just on account of the complex geology there, was well as its sheer size and numbers.

[@shawnwillsey]

Yes, I did a video on Obsidian Dome. Look for it soon.

[@cespool]

My coworker was showing me pictures of his home in Armenia. These same formations are in the color red in his hometown.

[@briane173]

When we first moved to Mammoth Lakes in 1970, Devils Postpile was the first place we visited, because it was late summer at the time and perfect conditions to see it from both the base and the top. I remember as a kid being awestruck by the perfectly honed surface at the top, so slippery in some places I was in fear of sliding off the top and down into the talus slope. And the hexagonal columns looked so perfectly even and pieced together it was as if humans laid down a tile floor on the top. 82,000 years is relatively recent in geologic terms, but Mammoth Mountain itself was still active (as it is today) and so it made sense that a lava flow would've been that recently placed. What is odd to me is that whereas the Long Valley caldera was almost exclusively dacitic and rhyolitic magmas creating the eruption, right there just outside the caldera rim it was pure basalt lava flows. Seems a little out-of-place for the system as a whole, but that area is in fact a separate system of vents and dikes along the normal-fault surface of the eastern Sierra block, which continues to uplift to this day. Inyo-Mono Craters follows that fault all the way to Mono Lake and has produced dozens of maars, tuff rings, cinder cones and rhyolite domes in a perfect line from Mammoth Mountain to the middle of Mono Lake. There's just SO much geology there, and it's the area that got me so interested in geology in the first place. And what makes it fascinating is that we're seeing these tectonic and volcanic forces acting on the area in real time. I'm hoping you'll be visiting "Earthquake Fault," and I won't give away the secret here but it's another geologic lesson in itself; Hot Creek, which is one of the more active vestiges of the Long Valley magma system; AND the Horseshoe Lake tree kill, which is another story taking place in real time with real consequences.

[@shawnwillsey]

I have a few more Eastern Sierra videos to come: Obsidian Dome, Owens River Gorge, and a few others. Didn't get to some of the ones you list here due to time constraints.

[@briane173]

@@shawnwillsey That's awesome, coz I haven't been to Obsidian Dome OR the Gorge; Owens River Gorge is a great location to try to get your arms around just how much tephra was ejected from the LV caldera. Just mind-boggling.

[@davidkaralus7464]

Deep Creek Falls off of Oregon Rt. 140, and just west of Adel, OR has a similar formation. Now I have to see this place too.

[@Gizathecat2]

At Mount Baker there’s also a spot where you can walk on top of the columns.

[@peterheelan9132]

Great tour! Unfortunately you say the best example in the world. Possibly in America, but hardly the world. Go see the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, Ireland.

[@gregsutton2400]

Same kind of formation near Clearwater lake in Wells Grey park in BC.

[@robertfritz9916]

On your Mono Lake video, I [posted about the "Whoa Nelly Deli" but my location was incorrect. The deli is in he gas station (Chevron I think) on Tioga Pass Road maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile form the intersection with 395. It's been a few years since we were there.

[@nnonotnow]

I love basalt columns. There are several in Yellowstone

[@Backroad_Junkie]

Thanks for the tour. I really wanted to see it, but when I was there, I'd have had to take a shuttle bus. Figured waiting for a bus reservation, etc, would have taken about 3-4 hours. So we left, and didn't visit. Sped up US-395 and spent those three hours wandering around Mariposa Grove in Yosemite.... This is your prelim video to Devils Tower? Lol.

[@briane173]

I first visited Devils Postpile when we moved to Mammoth Lakes in 1970, and of course back then it was a well-enough-kept secret where we could still drive all the way down and have plenty of parking and only a half-mile hike to the top. It's a mosh pit now with the number of people wanting to go there, and having to shuttle in and out kinda takes the fun out of it, because you're on the shuttle's time line and not your own.

[@shawnwillsey]

Yep, I've got a Devils Tower video on deck.

[@celticmugwump]

Are there rock types/cases where the gas that was held in solution never had a chance to escape and stays chemically bonded to the rock or just trapped in vesicles that never made it to the surface ? ( you mentioned the lack of vesicles meant all the gases held in solution had already escaped)

[@Panicagq2]

We have some lovely columns in Oregon along the Columbia River Gorge - tall smooth basalt columns, but in many places they're capped by a layer of vesicular basalt, like froth on a mug of beer. These columns he's showing us may have once had a frothier top layer as well - scraped away by the glacial action, maybe?

[@celticmugwump]

@@Panicagq2 That’s a great analogy i like that ! (who doesn’t like talking about beer 😂) i can visualise that now quite clearly and see the ice scraping it away like the bartender scraping it off with the knife. 🤔 i better have a beer now to check this whole thing out 😂

[@Panicagq2]

@celticmugwump Yes! Whatever the question, when rockhounds get together the answer often involves beer lol 🍺 Cheers!

[@briane173]

@@celticmugwump God was the bartender. I like it.

[@Metal4You666]

There’s a place that looks almost exactly like this place in keromeos BC Canada, even the trees look similar. Although there is lots of basalt columns so I guess it’s to be expected

[@rickmessina5396]

Is Devil’s tower in Wyoming the same type deposit.? Thanks I continue to learn at 71 years old……

[@shawnwillsey]

Yes, very similar process in creating columns. Different rock type though. Never stop learning.

[@Paulftate]

I liked ✌

[@lauram9478]

❤❤

[@kevindorland738]

Devil's Tower have the same history? Is what we see once buried?

[@shawnwillsey]

Similar columns but a bit different story. Look for a video on Devil's Tower geology soon. And one on climbing to the top.

[@Sköldpadda-77]

Neat place but anyone know what local indigenous people called the area? I mean really, how many things need to be named “Devil’s” whatever…?!

[@shawnwillsey]

Good point

[@TerryEdgett]

the same geology at "the giants causeway" Northern Ireland,

[@StellaVinum]

Nature’s floor tiling, done by lava and glaciers.

[@cliffordbaxter1992]

And you can walk there from lake Mary ✝️🇺🇸🙂

[@SkepticalRaptor]

Hey, you were just up the road from me. I would have bought you a beer or some other libation. I love Devils Postpile, though I did not know you could hike to the top. The polished off tops of the columns were amazing. I’m going to have to do that hike next summer. It’s much too cold now to go up there.

[@shawnwillsey]

Yeah, I went there in early October after the shuttle service had ended but before the winter weather set in.

[@bvinca]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Much appreciated. Thanks for the support.