 What reason did the newspaper have to focus on the possible active volcano theory and not the opinion of the geographer?
It has happened a hundred times in the long history of Earth—and, sooner or later, will happen again! The first survey of Colorado traced its course north and south in the narrow valley of Kiowa Creek about twenty miles east of Denver; it extended south to the Arkansas River. There was never so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the general public. It was still a matter of academic interest when in the late '40s geologists speculated on the relationship between the Kiowa Fault and the Conchas Fault farther south, in New Mexico, and which followed the Pecos as far south as Texas. Nor was there much in the papers a few years later when it was suggested that the Niobrara Fault (just inside and roughly parallel to the eastern border of Wyoming) was a northerly extension of the Kiowa. By the mid sixties it was definitely established that the three Faults were in fact a single line of fissure in the essential rock, stretching almost from the Canadian border well south of the New Mexico-Texas line. It had been a particularly hot and dry August, and the Forestry Service was keeping an anxious eye out for the fires it knew it could expect. Dense smoke was reported rising above a virtually uninhabited area along Black Squirrel Creek, and a plane was sent out for a report. Rock slides, they guessed; certainly no fire. The Forestry Service had other worries at the moment, and filed the report. Not even in the Rockies could anyone remember a series of rock slides as bad as this. Newspapers in the mountain states gave it a few inches on the front page; anything is news in late August. Seismologists were reporting unusual activity in the area, tremors too severe to be rock slides. Specifically, a dust volcano? Sunday supplements ran four-color artists' conceptions of the possible volcano. "Only Active Volcano in U. S.?" demanded the headlines, and some papers even left off the question mark. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling of the Kiowa Fault. His suggestion was mentioned on page nine or ten of the Monday newspapers (page 27 of the New York Times ). The idea was not nearly so exciting as a volcano, even a lava-less one, and you couldn't draw a very dramatic picture of it. To excuse the other geologists, it must be said that the Kiowa Fault had never acted up before. The dust volcano was on the face of it a more plausible theory.
 Simply that the idea of an active volcano was much more interesting to the public.
 There wasn't enough evidence to disprove the active volcano theory.  There wasn't enough evidence to write about the fault line theory.  Simply that the idea of an active volcano was much more interesting to the public.  Joseph Schwartzberg was the only geologist saying otherwise.