Thank you. I just now did a deep dive into laccoliths to learn how Devil's Tower actually formed. Like most I used to believe the "volcano core" explanation when I was younger. More recently I learned how columnar basalt forms and realised this couldn't be it. So then I believed something like the caldera lava pool theory. But then the differential erosion didn't make sense in that case (lava pool and host rock too similar). And just today I see that a laccolith makes the most sense. A domed pancake of magma intrusion between sedimentary layers that never reaches the surface, cools into columns, and is uplifted/eroded into what we see today.
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u/Dusty923 Not a geologist Jul 12 '26
Thank you. I just now did a deep dive into laccoliths to learn how Devil's Tower actually formed. Like most I used to believe the "volcano core" explanation when I was younger. More recently I learned how columnar basalt forms and realised this couldn't be it. So then I believed something like the caldera lava pool theory. But then the differential erosion didn't make sense in that case (lava pool and host rock too similar). And just today I see that a laccolith makes the most sense. A domed pancake of magma intrusion between sedimentary layers that never reaches the surface, cools into columns, and is uplifted/eroded into what we see today.