What makes the Table Mountains so important to preserve?
In the 1850s, settlers from the Midwest called North and South Table Mountains the Shining Mountains noting their changing colors under the sun and clouds. They rise 700 feet over the City of Golden. Native Americans used the mountains to hunt small game and used the Table Mountains for temporary campsites. Sixty-three million years ago, four layers of volcanic (basalt) flows formed North Table Mountain (NTM) and three flows formed South Table Mountain (STM). As volcanic structures, they are unique in the Front Range. NTM is nationally recognized for zeolite specimens. In 1943, the discovery of the K-T boundary, the geologic boundary that divides the time of the dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period and Tertiary period with end of the dinosaurs was first discovered on South Table Mountain. A jawbone of a small mammal that survived after the dinosaurs were killed off was discovered in a paleontology dig in 2000 on STM. The Table Mountains support diverse habitat with over 335 plant spe
