Underground Root System Was Not Discovered Beneath Devils Tower
The Claim
Photographic seismic readings on the Devils Tower National Monument reveal that there is a massive petrified root system hidden beneath it.
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Emerging story
The claim was first posted in 2017 on the Casper Planet Facebook page. Since then, it has been widely shared across social media platforms.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found that the original claim came from a Facebook satire page. The page that first posted it, Casper Planet, describes its content as “satire, humor, and opinion, names/locations are made up.” Despite this disclaimer, the post has been widely shared as fact.
The viral post usually includes an image of the root system that was purported to have been found beneath the tower. A reverse image search revealed that the image is of 8-week old sweet corn roots and did not come from “photographic seismic readings below the tower.”
According to National Geographic, the Devils Tower is composed of phonolite porphyry, a type of igneous rock. Igneous rocks come about when molten rock crystallizes and solidifies. Geologists have been studying how the tower formed since the 1800s, and currently, there are a number of theories. However, all of these theories agree that it began as magma that cooled to form the impressive tower.
