🌋 Adel Mountains Volcanic Field

The Adel Mountains Volcanic Field is an ancient volcanic field of heavily eroded 75-million-year-old igneous rocks about 40 miles long and 20 miles wide in west-central Montana about 30 miles southwest of the city of Great Falls. The area was named by geologist John Bartholomew Lyons, who first described the general geology of the region in 1944. The Adel Mountains Volcanic Field is a significant and abundant source of shonkinite, a very uncommon type of intrusive igneous rock found primarily in Montana, Ontario, and Timor. Because of its geologic structure, the Adel Mountains Volcanic Field has drawn the attention of geologists for more than 100 years.