Why Are There Young Volcanoes In Southern Utah? Journey Up The Diamond Valley Volcano With Geologist 

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I grew up in Enterprise which is 15 mins away from here. I used to drive past this cindercone all the time and have throughly explored this entire area. I never realized how beautiful the geography was until I moved to Houston.. That area is my home and I go back regularly to climb and snowboard. Pretty cool getting a geologist’s perspective.

The drone view: I just kept saying Oh wow! Thank you so much for the lesson!

I used to watch a lot of Nick Zentner's videos and have been watching Shawn's for some time. All this time I've wanted them to come to my area and talk about the wild and diverse geology here. Thanks!

Yes! I lived at the base of the Veyo volcano, NW of your presented location. I have wondered about the cones, and am thrilled to have an explanation! Thank you, Shawn.

That was fun! the Diamond Valley cinder cone was astounding. When the line of cars drove by below the cinder cone, they looked like ants. Whoa!!

This is great, college from my kitchen. Thanks Professor!

I love your "boots on the ground" approach to your passion, Shawn. Such a great way to teach! 😎

Volcanoes in Utah. I continue to learn amazing things. Thanks, Shawn.

St. George native here. I moved in my early 20s to complete my education and ended up visiting once or twice a year. (Less than that since my mother died.) I’m now 68. My heart still lives under the piercing blue sky laid like a blanket over the Kiabab Limestone and Navajo Sandstone of the area. Depending on the map, St. George is shown as part of the Mohave Desert, Basin and Range Province, or Colorado Plateau. Yo may want to address Silver Reef where silver was found in the sandstone. When the Industrial Park was developed on the Northeast part of town, my maternal grandfather moved his soft drink bottling operation and warehouse there when I was about 10. Silver ore was found on the property during development as well as in the Kelwood company plant site across the street. Fun apocryphal story: some local teenagers (before my time) purportedly went to the trouble of rolling some old tires up to the volcano’s cone, then setting them alight. Black smoke coming from a volcanic crater next to a state highway😉

Very nice video! Love these smaller, lessern known volcanoes. Would be really cool if someday you could do a video on the Raton-Clayton volcanic field!

Back in the early 2000’s I was an over the road long haul trucker. I hauled bulk commodities in a hopper bottom trailer. I’m based out of Mississippi but my delivery location was in southern Idaho near Burley at a dairy. Oftentimes my reload to take me back home was in Filmore Utah at one of the extinct volcanoes there. I’d load crushed and sized lava rock for bbq grills and take it back to Neosho Missouri to be packaged for Walmart to sell. I loved going out west and tried to stay out there as often as I could.

I am listening and learning.Looking forward to live stream tomorrow.⭐

You explain this crater activity SO WELL. THANK YOU

I don’t know how you find these things but so glad you do!

12:08 - I had to chuckle. You know the parks way better than most of us, Shawn! I'm about 5 or 6 thousand miles away from you. Thanks for this video; your enthusiasm is infectious. And educational. 🙂👍

Greetings from the BIG SKY. Both you and Nick Zentner have taught me a lot about contemporary geology. Thanks.

I attended a medical conference in St. George and one of the presenting doctors told about being a teenage prankster growing up in the area. He and his buddies threw old tires soaked in fuel and lots of fireworks into the Diamond Valley crater. Near dawn, they lit the stuff on fire resulting in panicked neighbors who were sure their volcano had just awakened.

Very cool. I love the drone footage as well. Thanks Shawn.

10yrs ago saw a small volcano flying from Seattle to Dallas@30,000ft .😮 Basin & Range, it all makes sense now. 😊

Another great video! When I traveled out West. I always wished that I could have been with a geologist to explain what I was seeing and now I have that😍

SHAWN there was a video recently saying that tourist Bureau in Iceland is very concerned because people won’t come because of issues with the blue lagoon. Please, please tell your Icelandic friends -I am coming to Iceland in September because I’m a photographer and I love to travel, and I love meeting people with different cultures. I can find another swimming hole!!!!🏊🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️🏊🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️🏊🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️🏊🏊‍♀️🏊‍♂️🏊

🔨🇺🇸❤🙋 Good morning to the best american teacher. Amazing, gourgeours dilightful video about vulcane in Saint Clara Utha State# Cind Cone. I saw the beatful sky; beaitiful view of road and some people driving there.But the mountain and dry lava, and color stone are the best in this most useful video from you lovely teacher Sham Wislley. Thank for all you have done for Education around the world. I'm proud of you Shalm. 🔨🇺🇸👏👏

I lived in Dammeron Valley for 10 years and enjoyed the view of the Veyo cinder cone. I now live in Castle Valley up the river from Moab and look out on the LaSal Mountains which are laccoliths.I'd like you to do a presentation on these intrusions of the Colorado Plateau.

I grew up in St. George and 2 places come to mind: dinosaur tracks south of St. George, and Utah Hill which is west of this volcano and has a ton of fossils. They took us there in elementary school. Very cool place.

I can't help but notice that town built in the middle of two lava flows.

Great drone shots. Great video Shawn.

Ever wonder why so many roads in SW Utah have a reddish tint? There's a cinder cone up in Apple Valley that has been producing gravel for decades. Lots of volcanic activity around Hurricane (and thank you for pronouncing it right btw). Kolob Canyon has at least one cinder cone, and I think a couple 3 total. If you head north from where you shot this till you get to Beryl Junction - hook a left onto 56 toward Caliente, NV. Some great geology out that way - plus, the drive is beautiful on its own!

Thanks for this! Very informative and accessible geology hikes!

Love the drone shot!!

What a lot of snarly sharp fantastic lava! Beautiful scenic country! Wow, in every direction. Droning ! 👌🏼 I love and appreciate your enthusiasm. Thank you! ❤

Thank you Professor. As always deeply interesting.

Really enjoyed the tour and your explanation of the cinder zones there. Found the role plays in the asymmetry fascinating. Thank you.

Beautiful and impressive!

Hope you visit the Colorado volcanoes soon! Dotsero is very accessible, and a very interesting visit. Coffee Pot cinder cone nearby is less known, but still interesting. And then of course the various extinct supervolcanoes.

The scene near the end as the camera pans to the NE and overlooking the town of Diamond Valley reminds me a bit of the town impacted by "The Andromeda Strain" -- Piedmont, New Mexico.

Do you have a video exploring northeast corner of Utah- “Dinosaurland” and the Book Cliffs? Growing up there, I was interested in the paleontology aspect but now I’m interested in the geology as well. Thanks for your spark!

Thank you! Love the drone video. I learned a couple new terms today.

Thanks again for an interesting and educational video. Makes me wish I could turn back time and study geology, I know, never to late, lol

Agglutinate and wind blown cinders and a fabulous flyover thank you Shawn… I remembered it…

There are lava tubes in Snow Canyon State Park that you can hike through. I was there one evening, but didn't have a flashlight so I didn't go exploring. I'm staying in the area this winter, so I'll get back up there soon and check them out. Excellent video and thanks for helping us get smarter!

This is stunningly beautiful.

Wow, I didn’t know about these volcanoes.

Thanks!

Thank you so much for the wonderful video. Makes me wish I were a geologist. So very interesting!!

Spectacular.

I've been right there before. Cool to learn more.

This is incredible. I was photographing in St George and Snow Canyon a few years ago, and when I left I took highway 18 near sunset. I photographed this one, and the Santa Clara one with Signal Peak and the mountain range glowing pink in the sunset afterglow. I was really taken by this little section of highway. Loved the lesson. Let me know if you’d like to join me on a Baja trip sometime. I live in San Diego and shoot down there a lot. I’m always curious about the geology of Baja. It’s so unique and raw. I’d love a geologists take on how everything was formed.

Another exiting video....thank you.

gotta go... can feel the enthusiasm about landforms ..thanx :)

another most excellent video thank you for sharing

I've been wanting to hike up that volcano for a couple years now but every time I see how narrow the pathway looks in some spots I think, "NOPE!" Lol. I do enjoy learning more about these volcanoes though. Always a fun drive through here.

So many interesting things that I never knew existed in my home state!

Great stuff, so interesting. Thankyou

Thank you!! Very interesting!!

Beautiful

Thanks for this one! My local cinder cones are also in an extensional setting, but on the east side of the Colorado Plateau.

Sunset Crater near Flagstaff is pretty cool and accessible. Also cinder craters near Mono Lake.

Gorgeous, my favourite type of volcano! Salutations from the Chaîne des Puys in France 😊

like the eruption in iceland. at least the part that didnt hit the town. that was very interesting to watch, day or night views.

I also want to add I’ve been fortunate to prospect around the area and WOW!!! Beautiful Smokey quartz and fluorite!!!!

For a couple of other beautiful and accessible cinder cones, check out Sunset Crater, a national monument, just north of Flagstaff, AZ and Capulin Volcano in the Clayton-Raton volcanic field in north east New Mexico.

great explanation!

you can see the assymetry in the reykjanes (and auckland) cinder cones and shields too- where past wind direction has governed the tephra deposition :) oh and during eruptions, the "agglutinates" are the structures that form rootless shields/lava flows, as partially molten tephra accumulates on itself.

I love Snow Canyon State Park and the cinder cones that surround it! Thanks for highlighting one of my favorite spots in Utah with a scientific tour!

It has started again! Lets go! (Hope Grindavík will be safe though)

I visited Sunset Crater National Monument in Arizona back in the 90s. Wish I knew more about what I was looking at back then! Love the channel.

Thanks Shawn , what a great tip ! Camping 🏕️ they’re next time through Saint George . Awesome 👏 cons ! Doesn’t Death Valley have some beautiful cons ? Camped there long time ago . ❤🎉

Another reason for asymmetry in a Cinder Cone is when a partial collapse happens on the rim wall. This can happen early in the cone development leading to continued asymmetry.

Another great video-thanks, Shawn! 😀👍

Thanks for the fantastic explanation and aerial view. Much appreciated.

Thanks Shawn, always something new to learn.

Great video Shawn! Appreciate you mentioning there were volcanoes near Hurricane, UT. I've driven US-12 and near the top of the summit, there is a scenic pulloff at which I think I've seen volcanic bombs. If those are really volcanic bombs, it would be great to hear how they got there!

Thank you Shawn 😊 I am thoroughly enjoying your geology lessons ❤😊

Love these videos! I would love to see more on the markagunt plateau and the area east of cedar city.

What lovely names; Diamond Valley and Snow Canyon.

This is awesome!! I really wanna go look around in Utah!!! Even a gas cone would be cool to see or smell? lolol

One thing of interest to me is the change of vegetation as you go north on Hwy 18. St. George/Santa Clara is about at the northern and altitudinal limit of creosote bush (Larrea tridentata). As you go north, they disappear somewhere between St. George and the cinder cones.

I lived in Brian Head and wondered what was with the cinder cones. Thanks.

Great video, Prof. Watch out for rattlesnakes later in the spring. I’m sure they will let you know, but the “agglutinates” are where they like to live.

I understand that the flows out in Ivins are the youngest. Live here in St. George for 25 years in a geology type field.

Been there, done that!

There was also one that went into Nevada and Utah . I believe it was a super volcano

There's a million of these cinder cones pocked all over the west, but whenever I see one I immediately think of Red Hill near Coso Junction in CA. Once you leave the Mojave Desert on US-395 and enter Owens Valley, Red Hill is the first thing you see, and it's a helluva landmark, right in front of your face as you head north. These things are literally everywhere in the Basin & Range, especially along the Sierra Escarpment -- and for the same reason as Diamond Valley. We've got quite a few right here in Portland/Vancouver area. I have one sitting barely a mile from my house; just hard to tell it's a cinder cone coz it's completely overgrown with conifers. But it's a legit cinder cone, just like Prune Hill to its south. All part of the Boring Volcanic Field -- which is anything but Boring.

Dont forget about veyo cinder cone just a few miles down the road, pretty sure its much bigger

Thanks again prof! Cant get enough of these you do. Does this mean you finally got a drone??!! 😎👍

You should do a study on the sunset crater

Wow that\s really interesting! I’ve been through northern AZ and Southern UT and always wondered the age of those features. I was at the San Francisco volcanic field near the town of flagstaff and learned that it last erupted about 1100 years ago

With the scoria, cinders, dead grass, sage and cinder cones, it could be Central Oregon, but it’s “out of range” of the Cascade volcanic arc. It’s on the Eastern edge of the Basin and Range extensional province on thin normal faulted crust. For what it’s worth, I suspect a Late Cretaceous spreading ridge was over-ridden by the NA plate, while its upwelling mantle spreading character exploited the relatively weak Cordilleran Terrane faults and weakened the adjacent NA Craton; this also explains the New Mexico rift zone as well.

I recently started watching these videos and am enjoying them. Many years ago on a summer school fiield trip in Millard county, we visited the volcano there. The mouth was below ground and had snow in it. It was refreshing to feel the cool air on that hot day. Have you ever gone to Parowan Gap? it's an interesting place.

shawn wilsey there is huge caldera in utah called indian peak caldera

Sunset is another cone that easy to get to adjacent to a national monument and geology park.

Shawn there is another very interesting cinder cone in northern New Mexico to the north of US hwy 64. It is called Capulin Volcano National Monument. You should visit it sometime and let us know the history of all the volcano's in this region. Thanks for all your informative videos. I really like the drone shots to give us a better perspective.

Hi Shawn - I've been enjoying your Iceland updates, since we take geology students on travel study adventures there, and now it looks like you're in the neighborhood! Welcome. I rarely comment on youtube videos but we try so hard to get accurate info out there so I just had to for this one. I made the geologic maps of the area for Utah Geological Survey and now teach at the university. I wish you would have stopped by! This video actually reverses the names of these volcanoes. You hiked the cone at the vent for the Santa Clara flow that does go down through Snow Canyon (the cone is within park boundaries) into Santa Clara and beyond. Charcoal from under the flow gives an age of 32,600 +/- 300 calendar years. The 27,000 age mentioned is in Carbon-14 years, but most people don't think in that scale. The smaller cone is the Diamond Valley flow which is slightly younger since that flow ponds up next to the older flow. That flow stays local to Diamond Valley and is much smaller. The angle of repose for loose sand is 30-35 but these volcanoes are certainly much steeper than that. The vents line up with the younger system of joints in the Navajo Sandstone, but the flows did not erupt along a fault. Nice regional overview from that amazing vantage point. I appreciate your casual presentation style and your educational efforts. It would be great to meet you if you are still in the area!

Very cool place. And is so often the case in Utah, a fantastic, otherworldly landscape.

That pile of cinders to the left of the beginning of the trail at 1:09 looks interesting and separate, from this point of view. Briefly visible on the bottom of the drone footage at 16:44.

great follow up from yesterday as i was wondering where the lava came from

About 50 years ago (so I may be misremembering) my geology class took a field trip to Pisgah Crater in California. The cinder cone seems to be made of black sand (actually obsidian) instead of the lava bombs and the clumpy texture in this video. WHAT WOULD CAUSE THIS DIFFERENCE? Is that because Pisgah is in a sandy desert area? There are lots of cool lava tubes to climb through there too.

Really cool video!!!! I invite you to come to a more ancient remnant ❤ come to New Hampshire and see the Ossipee ring dike!!! Quite amazing to have columned basalt in our little waaaaay more ancient state…. Love your videos, well done

These are called scoria cones in Australia.