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Photographs of Sheepeater Cliff, Yellowstone National Park
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Sheepeater Cliff is composed of columnar basalt. The long vertical columns of the cliff are bounded by cooling ractures that formed as the thick lava flow cooled forming a regular set of joints perpendicular to the cooling surfaces at the top, bottom, and sides of the flow. The flow of Swan Lake Flat Basalt erupted sometime between 320,000 and 640,000 years ago.
Sheepeater Cliff, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
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View of the Swan Lake Flat Basalt at Sheepeater Cliff, which erupted sometime between 320,000 and 640,000 years ago. Photograph by S.R. Brantley on 20 May 2001.
Close view of Swan Lake Flat Basalt.
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Columns of the Sheepeater Cliff, bounded by contractional cooling fractures typically are regular polygons, which here are seen to be hexagonal in cross section. Photograph by S.R. Brantley on 20 May 2001.


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Last Modification: Thursday, March 17, 2005 (dyv)
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