Volcanic Skeletons.

After the cone of an extinct volcano has become maturely dissected it is progressively
destroyed by erosion,

Volcanic Necks

and as the geomorphic cycle proceeds towards old age, the land surface may be worn down to
a level beneath the base of all the volcanic deposits. Even when this takes place, however,
some indications of former volcanic action will remain, for the pipe by way of which lava formerly
reached the surface will be plugged with either compact solidified igneous rock or with
agglomerate, a mass of blocks of lava. The plug is commonly resistant, and where left in relief
by selective erosion becomes a nec\, which may be a prominent rugged peak. Dykes also may
remain intersecting rocks below the bases of former volcanoes and later stand out in relief
above surrounding weak rocks as hogbacks (fig. 383).

Dykes may be radially arranged around a neck, supporting it as buttresses. Such dykes
were probably feeding channels for lateral outflows of lava on a cone of which the neck was the
axis. Neck and buttressing dykes together form a volcanic skeleton (figs. 384, 385). In addition
to necks exposed by deep erosion possibly continuing through successive erosion cycles (the
"Navajo" type: fig. 386, B), some are merely plug domes left standing after the removal of easily
eroded cones of ash which have surrounded them (the "Hopi" type: fig. 386, A) and have
themselves been reduced but little by erosion.

Laccolithic Mountains.
Sheets of intrusive rock of uniform thickness intercalated between sedimentary strata or lava
sheets are termed sills. In some cases intrusive sheets swell into thick lensshaped masses,
lifting the rocks above them so as to form domeshaped uplifts of the surface. Such intrusive
bodies are laccoliths. Laccolithic domes occur in greatest perfection of symmetrical
development in the Henry Mountains, in southern Utah, where formerly horizontal strata have
been up-domed. "Salt domes" are similarly raised by injection of bodies of rock salt 1 . Each
such dome will be eroded and go through a geomorphic cycle independently of its surroundings.
In common with all dome-shaped structures of stratified rocks it will generally be characterised
when mature by the presence of concentric arcuate homoclinal features. In the case of some of
the Henry Mountains laccoliths erosion has exposed the igneous cores and maturely dissected
them; and the mountains thus formed are surrounded by curved homoclinal ridges on the
upturned edges of the more resistant members of the domed covering strata.