Sliding with the Devil EarthCache
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Located on Highway 89 between Gardiner, MT and Emigrant, MT
Devils Slide is an unusual cliff formation raising 6564 feet above sea level, located in Park County, north of Yellowstone National Park, near Corwin Springs. This distinctive formation can be viewed highway 89 and was created by alternate beds of limestone, sandstone, quartzites that have been tilted to lie nearly vertical and have eroded at different rates. Named by early settlers that thought the distinctive slide was Cinnabar which is red mercury sulfide or native vermillion, the common ore of mercury. The bright red is actually composited of Chugwater mudstone. The slide is protected on the south by an Eocene dike that is 80 ft x 130 ft x 1500 ft. The area of the slide was actually horizontal until about 200 million years ago when a volcanic blast and earthquakes caused the slide to assume its current position. The legend of the Devils Slide is told in a jingle: “Ages ago, one can easily see, Old Yellowstone Valley went on a spree; The mountains had risen, the valleys had sunk, And old Mother Nature got roaringly drunk. The Devil, as drunk as the Devil would be, Slid to the bottom of Cinnabaree.”
LOGGING REQUIREMENTS
BEFORE you may log and claim this earthcache as a find, you must first email us your answers to the following questions. Do NOT put your answers in your log posting!
1. What material composes the slide?
2. What is Cinnabar?
3. How big is the Eocene Dike?
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