Bunsen Peak
Dave Walsh 29 Dec ’15
This Wonder is an inactive volcanic cone, and it took its name from a famous German physicist. He was a renowned chemist and physicist who came to Wyoming in the 1800’s to study the phenomenal geyser activity in Yellowstone Park. His pioneering research on the subject is still considered incredibly accurate. And although he is best-known for a research apparatus that he invented, this scientist would have a peak in the Park named after him as well.
This Wonder, an 8,564-foot inactive volcanic cone, looks very much like a chemistry experiment gone awry. And it actually resembles that research tool named after the famed scientist, Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Von Bunsen, yes, the Bunsen burner. And the Bunsen burner-like mountain, well of course, Bunsen Peak.
Much like the burner, the Peak has burned as well. First, eons ago as an active volcano, but more recently, in the 1880’s and then again in the North Fork Fire of 1988, leaving a patchwork of long strips of unburned trees next to those that are now just blackened poles.
Bunsen Peak, a Wonder of Wyoming.