Tower in Motion: Resonance Mode Analysis of Devils Tower; new from us, now published in GSA Today: www.geosociety.org/GSA/Publications/GSA_Today/GSA/GSAToday/science/G635A/article.aspx

March 25, 2026 - 14:29 UTC

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“Boi-oi-oi-oing
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This is needed in GIF form.
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There's an obvious soundtrack for that animation, if you happen to need one: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BBPMSqLUdk
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Looks like its dancing! A columnar cha cha. A basaltic ballet. A lava line dance
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You need to do it for phonolitic laccoliths! A bigger challenge
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“Modal displacements at the summit station at 1.1 Hz were ~0.5 μm at maximum during a windy period”

If I understand this correctly, the summit station was moving a maximum of half a micrometer (micron) during a windy period. A micrometer is one-millionth of a meter.
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Yep! Movements are tiny, but very real nonetheless. Modern seismometers are amazing.
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Did not know it was made of jello. May have missed one or two details here. Never took a proper physics class.
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hey is that thing like Ahuna Mons on Ceres?
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Fascinating.

In plain English, what is the frequency and amplitude of these movements please?
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Sorry, frequencies are not shown on the animations. This figure from the paper shows them, basically 1-2 Hz:
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schwing!
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Deploying our seismometer on the summit of Devils Tower:
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A little visualization that didn't make it into the article (mode 2):
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This is an absolute dream gear deployment day trip. The wobbly tower animation is just a cherry on top. Nice work
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Just looked at the paper in more detail - very nicely done, what a fun imaginative project, I love that I will ever after look at it as the swaying Devils tower.
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:) glad you liked it!
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It’s wild (speaking as someone who’s never studied geology or seismology) that you can detect seismic effects due to the ocean!
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forbidden gumdrop
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Giant blancmange
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Phantasmagorical! Was there any analysis to compare (e.g. frequencies) to? I realize that might be a tad challenging….
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Ok so I guess I’m confused (as usual). Mode shapes from analysis and measured frequencies & displacements? Commercially available code for the analysis?
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