10 posts tagged “geology”
On our way to Las Vegas, we took the route that takes you through the southern edge of Zion National Park. I was unprepared for exactly how beautiful this drive would be, and we will definitely be going back to Zion for a longer visit sometime in the future.
I actually found myself feeling fortunate that we hit the park on a rainy day. I don't think the clouds would have been as dramatically low as they were, otherwise, shrowding the mountain tops.
The park as seen from space in Google Earth. The red lines are hiking trails. Oh, the places I'll go!
Yesterday: Blue Mesa
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
This is a pull-off north of the Blue Mesa area in the park called Tepees. There are no actual tepees here, but I guess someone thought that the badland formations here looked like tepees. They are somewhat pyramid-like. This is also a virtual geocache, so I took a pic of Strix standing in the foreground holding our GPS to prove we were there.
Our next stop was Puerco Pueblo, which is a small ruins area in the park. No, I don't know why it's called Pig Village, though there is a Rio Puerco that runs through New Mexico and joins into the Colorado River, which of course runs through Arizona. But then the question is why is the river called Pig River? There are some questions we are not meant to answer.
The ruins site is not much to see after you've been to Chaco Canyon, but it's still interesting.
Petroglyphs found at the Puerco Pueblo site.
This is a detail of one of the pics above. This has to be the most humorous petroglyph I've ever seen. Strix calls this one, "I said put me down!" Did the "artist" mean for it to be funny? Was it a horror story about a thirty-foot tall bird that ate humans? Is, in fact, this an attempt at perspective, and the man is actually supposed to be in the background? We'll never know.
Tomorrow: Route 66 Monument
Yesterday: Crystal Forest
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
Probably the most beautiful area of the park that we saw was the Blue Mesa area, which is a looped drive that you have to leave the main road for, and has a couple of trails in it. Of course, all this beautiful scenary around us, and I decided to take a picture of my shadow first.
Much cooler than my shadow, admittedly.
In this area, erosion has created badland-like features, but at the same time it has uncovered large pieces of petrified wood. The petrified wood is harder than the sedimentary rock beneath it, so it remains even as the mountain is washed away beneath it. Eventually, this petrified logs will roll down the side of the formations and crash into pieces at the bottom.
Just in case you were thinking of taking a step off a five hundred foot drop.
There are signs in the area commanding visitors not to feed the wildlife, but it I think it's clear that someone has been feeding these birds. Two ravens adopted us and followed us from pull-off to pull-off, showing very little fear of humans. Of course, they looked about thirty pounds and had little cause to fear anything. Or maybe they just liked the PT Cruiser.
I ignored the warning sign and walked out onto a sheer ledge to take these shots, much to Strix's dismay, but I got some great pics. If I had fallen to my death, the camera may still have been salvagable, so it would have been worth it.
Strix getting up close and personal to get a picture of one of the ravens. She's about two feet from it here.
Tomorrow: Tepees and Puerco Pueblo
Yesterday: Agate House
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
Crystal Forest is another trail area in the PFNP, strewn with pieces of petrified trees.
This sign describes what scientists think this area looked like during the Triassic period. It was a hell of a lot wetter, and when the forests that were here were submerged in silty water, they were infused with the crystaline silicates that resulted in them becoming petrified.
Strix thought the shadow side of this formation looked like the outline of a camel, so it was thus named.
Tomorrow: Blue Mesa
Yesterday: Rainbow Forest and Museum
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
If you park at the Rainbow Forest Museum and walk across the small bridge to the north, you come to the trailhead for the Agate House. This trail connects with the Long Logs Trail, too, but we didn't have time to take that one, and opted to see the Agate House, which is a Native American archaeological site similar in construction to structures built by the Anasazi elsewhere in the Four Corners area, but made entirely out of petrified wood.
This trail is fully paved, making it an easy hike.
The Agate House. While similar, the construction is different than you see in Anasazi ruins, particularly in that you don't see the layers of varied stone size, and there's a lot more mortar involved here. Difference in materials is probably to blame. The stone used at other sites is softer and easier to chip into different sizes, whereas the petrified wood is pretty hard stuff.
Just some whitish deposites I saw on the way back to the main road. This whole area is all very interesting geologically.
Tomorrow: Crystal Forest
Yesterday: Holbrook's Petroglyph Park
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
This was our second day at the Petrified Forest National Park, and we came at it from the other direction, going in the South entrance. The first thing you come to is a very touristy place that is officially outside the park where you can buy petrified wood from private land, as well as other tourist kitsch. Sadly, they don't sell gasoline, and at this point I was starting to be a little concerned about our fuel levels, but Strix assured me that her Cruiser could handle it.
Inside the park from the South entrance, the first thing you come come to is the Rainbow Forest Museum.
The dinosaur exibits in the small museum are few, but impressive.
Rainbow Forest, behind the museum, is a windy trail strewn with petrified wood pieces.
Click on this one for a larger view. Some of the pieces of petrified wood, like this one, completely crystalized on the inside, and are exceptionally beautiful.
A memorial plaque, honoring Stephen Tyng Mather, the first director of the National Park Service,
Two of the more interesting pieces of petrified wood, and another scenary shot, showing how much is on the ground here.
Tomorrow: Agate House
One of the Flickr groups Strix belongs to requires her to take a picture of a sunset occasionally and post it to the group. Our idea this time was to go out to the Four Corners Monument, since we hadn't been there, yet, and take pictures at sunset. Imagine our chagrin after an hour and a half of driving when we found out the place closes at five o'clock.
But it wasn't a total loss. We went back into Shiprock and started looking for a way to get closer to the rock formation for which the town is named. You can see it from the highway (actually, you can see it for a hundred miles in any direction), but I had never been able to get close enough to see it without powerlines between me and it, except for the one time I saw it from a helicopter.
So, we went out on highway 491 (formerly highway 666 - can you guess why they changed it?) and then up highway 13 until we came to a dirt road that looked like it led right up to the Shiprock. My little city pickup truck was not designed for that terrain, though, so we only ended up going about halfway, but we did get close enough to get some good, unobstructed shots of the Shiprock and the surrounding terrain.
The Shiprock, shortly before sunset, jutting 1,800 feet straight up out of the surrounding desert. The Navajo name for it, Tsé Bit' A'í, means "winged rock," and refers to the legend which says that the Navajo (or "Diné" in their own language) were brought to this area by a giant bird, which then transformed into this rock formation. Of course, there's another legend that man-eating bird monsters live on the peak, so we thought it best not to get too close.
A couple of shots of the surrounding landscape.
A couple more shots of the Shiprock.
More landscape shots.
And a final shot of the Shiprock, in silhouette with the sunset behind it.
Not mine, obviously. This is what the Shiprock looks like from an oblique angle in Google Earth.
Yesterday: Newspaper Rock and Agate Bridge
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
When you get to the Petrified Forest part of the park, you begin to see the pieces of mineralized tree trunks everywhere. These are ancient trees, about 225 million years old, that were flooded with silicate-laden water which seeped into the wood and turned them into fossiles. The petrified wood here is reddish due to the presence of iron oxide.
Here you can see petrified logs strewn all about. There used to be a lot more, I understand, but much of it got carted away before the area was declared a national park and it was made illegal to take the specimens.
Examples of petrified wood. The fourth pic shows Strix taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. The fifth pic shows some of the amazing colors that can be found in the wood.
This being a park, there is a lot of wildlife. Other than the enormous ravens you'll see later, we didn't actually see any of it, but there were signs. Here are some tracks, possibly from a rabbit.
More examples of some of the more interesting pieces we saw. Honestly, though, how many pictures can you take of fossilized tree stumps?
Tomorrow: The Wigwam Motel
Yesterday: Window Rock
This continues the documentation of our recent trip to the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona.
The troubling thing about landscape shots, is that the photographs never look as amazing as the actual scenary did. Never. The closest you can come to capturing the grandeur of it is if you have camera that will do panorama shots. Strix's camera does, so check out her panoramas. Even though mine aren't as good, I think I still got some decent shots.
When you enter the Petrified Forest National Park from I-40, the first thing you see are pull-offs where you can view (and photograph, of course) the Painted Desert, which is a badlands area of striking beauty and color.
Views from the first pull-off.
Strix beginning her panorama shot. Yes, she does it without a tripod. She's good that way.
Various shots from different pull-off areas.
A geologic survey marker from 1934, documenting our altitude (5,826 ft).
A couple more shots. These were from behind the Painted Desert Inn, an historic building in the middle of the park, overlooking some of the best views of the Painted Desert.
Some images from the Painted Desert Inn. The left shows a native rug with one of the neater looking petroglyphs behind it that I've ever seen. The center image shows the glass skylight that according to the U.S. Park Service employee there was added by Civilian Conservation Corps workers when they refurbished the building in the 1930's. The image on the right is a view of the badlands from under the rustic awning behind the Inn.
And, you guessed it, more pictures of the Painted Desert. The center shot was of an interesting formation at full zoom.
There are informational kiosks at most of the pull-off points. This one was at Pintado Point, and was part of a virtual geocache, so we had to take a picture of it.
From here, we continued south through the park, crossing I-40 approaching the Petrified Forest.
Tomorrow: Newspaper Rock and Agate Bridge
Strix and I spent the weekend in Arizona visiting the Petrified Forest National Park and points in between (and a little beyond). I have a lot of pictures to post and a couple of restaurant reviews, so rather than try to do it all in one long post, I'm going to give it to you a little at a time.
For the first installment, we'll talk about Window Rock. The City of Window Rock, Arizona, is just west of the border with New Mexico, and it is the capital of the Navajo Nation. We passed through here on the way to the Petrified Forest, and stopped to see the rock formation for which the town was named.
The area in front of the Window Rock is now a veteran's memorial park. It's difficult to read the writing on this marker in the center of the park, since for some reason it was deemed necessary to cage the marker in (was it going to get away?). It says:
In Remembrance of our Warriors
Who Made the Ultimate Sacrifice and/or
Missing in Action
They Will Never Be Forgotten
and to us, they will always be young in our thoughts.
I'm not really sure what it means, either, but I appreciate the sentiment.
This is the actual Window Rock. Click for a larger image; it's really spectacular. This was part of a virtual geocache, so we had to get a picture of one of us holding our GPS with the Window Rock in the background. The picture on the right satisfies the requirement, with Strix holding the GPS.
A much larger than life bronze statue of a Navajo Code Talker can also be found in the park. If you're not familiar with the story of the Code Talkers, read up on it. It's actually quite facinating.
A couple more images from the park. The whole park was in a circle, with the sacred colors adorning each of the cardinal directions with which they are associated. Very cool.
Horses and other livestock just roam free here. A couple of horses wandered into the memorial's parking lot to see us off.
That's all I have of Window Rock. We might have stayed longer, but a Pentecostal family arrived about this time and, piling out of their minivan like clowns at a circus, decided to allow their children to climb the rock formations which are very sacred to the people who live here. We decided it would be best not to be here.
Tomorrow: The Painted Desert.