Heart Mountain (Wyoming)

Heart Mountain is an 8,123-foot (2,476 m) klippe just north of Cody in the U.S. state of Wyoming, rising from the floor of the Bighorn Basin. The mountain is composed of limestone and dolomite of Ordovician through Mississippian age (about 500 to 350 million years old), but it rests on the Willwood Formation, rocks that are about 55 million years old—rock on the summit of Heart Mountain is thus almost 300 million years older than the rocks at the base. For over one hundred years, geologists have tried to understand how these older rocks came to rest on much younger strata.

Heart Mountain (Wyoming)

Heart Mountain is an 8,123-foot (2,476 m) klippe just north of Cody in the U.S. state of Wyoming, rising from the floor of the Bighorn Basin. The mountain is composed of limestone and dolomite of Ordovician through Mississippian age (about 500 to 350 million years old), but it rests on the Willwood Formation, rocks that are about 55 million years old—rock on the summit of Heart Mountain is thus almost 300 million years older than the rocks at the base. For over one hundred years, geologists have tried to understand how these older rocks came to rest on much younger strata.