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| Heart Mountain |
 Title text: Even geology papers about Heart Mountain are like, "Look, we all agree this 'volcanic gas earthquake hovercraft' thing seems like it can't possibly be right, but..." |
Explanation
The geology of Heart Mountain, in Wyoming, is very much explained as the comic suggests, though not as neatly as the geologists' purely functional diagram depicts. And, as per the title text, even geologists find this process to be strange. No wonder that concerned non-geologists could eavesdrop on such an explanation being given and be even more worried and incredulous about their states of mind.
The main anomaly is that the rock at the top of the mountain is far older than that of its base. There are other processes that can result in such inverted stratigraphy, but in this case the evidence does indeed seem to suggest that a (more than) mountain-sized amount of rock was rapidly (in parts at the quoted speed of 90 mph, or more, lasting perhaps just half an hour) forced to slide a significant distance over younger rocks, through the action of one or other volcanic processes on and above a near-horizontal geological fault, after which significant erosion over millions of years has left 'just' the material that forms mountain we now see (and some other traces) in the now anomalous position.
As an added bonus, the first 'European' maps of the mountain also had it placed in the wrong position, but this was purely human error and totally unconnected to the prehistoric rearrangement of material.
Transcript
- [Cueball is on the left, Ponytail is facing him from the right.]
- Cueball: We haven't checked in on the Geology Department for a while. I wonder if they're doing okay.
- [Ponytail is walking to the right.]
- Ponytail: I'll go see what they're up to.
- [Ponytail is now seen having opened a door at the left side of a room, within which White Hat, Megan and another Cueball are looking at a chart on the wall, the other Cueball gesturing towards the chart. Most of the chart is illegible, but near the top it says "90 MPH", and below that there's a diagram of geologic strata, with the label "Bighorn Dolomite", upon which a sharply rectangular and isolated rock 'block' is depicted. The rock block has speed-lines indicating its rapid movement from left to right.]
- Cueball: 49 million years ago, Heart Mountain, Wyoming slid sideways 15 miles like a giant stone hovercraft.
- [Ponytail walks back to the Cueball from the first panel's scene.]
- Ponytail: ... They're not okay.
- Voice from off the right side of the panel: Hey, you come up with a better explanation!
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