The Coming Gigantic Crater in Arizona: The Supreme Court Fast-Tracks Destruction of Sacred Lands

Sometimes issues keep coming up. I hadn't heard of updates of the Oak Flat Controversy in a couple of years, but with the new administration, the issue has arisen again as the Supreme Court fast-tracks a controversial land swap to enable the opening of a massive copper mine (with a surprising dissent by Gorsuch). I have posted the following several times as the debates continued over the years. It was also one of the oddest geological issues I've ever come across. My brother took me to Oak Flat during a visit to the Phoenix area, and it wasn't until later that I found out the insidious actions taking place in Congress to destroy the area (for money, of course). How often do we hear of plans to produce a hole larger than Meteor Crater? This is at the expense of lands sacred to the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Tonto Apache Tribe, the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Yavapai-Apache Nation, the Yavapai-Prescott Indian Tribe, the Gila River Indian Community, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, the Hopi Tribe, and the Pueblo of Zuni. Please read on to find out what is being done to this sacred place.

When I see a representative insisting that a law must be followed ("Rep. Gosar is pressuring the Forest Service to enforce its rules that limit camping at Oak Flat to 14 consecutive days") when he helped subvert law to bring this situation about, I feel sick about our political system. In any case, like the title says, Arizona is going to get another Meteor Crater-sized hole, only bigger, and we know where and why it is going to happen...

This is NOT a killer asteroid entering the Earth's atmosphere. It is a sun dog over Oak Flat Campground near Superior, Arizona. Oak Flat is going to become a gigantic crater.

...because it won't be a meteor that causes it. It won't be an atomic bomb test. And it won't be because of aliens like those stupid ones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The giant crater will be entirely the work of human beings, and gravity. And it will destroy a place that is sacred to many, and was given protection by a Republican president 70 years ago.

Meteor Crater, Arizona is probably the most famous impact crater on the planet, and is about three-quarters of a mile across, and about 550 feet deep. The coming crater is expected to be about a mile across, and as much as 1,000 feet deep. How in the world is such a thing going to happen?

The town of Superior, Arizona is like many old mining towns of the west. It's depressed, it's poor, and few inhabitants really have a reason to stay. People made a good living out here at one time, mining and smelting copper from huge open pits nearby. But the mines closed decades ago.

But the copper wasn't all gone. With prices up, there is renewed interest, and Resolution Copper has outlined a huge ore body, one of the largest in the world. But there's a problem.

It's 7,000 feet beneath the surface.

The normal approach, open-pit mining, won't work. It's far too deep. Normal tunnel mining won't cut it either, because although the ore body is huge, it is low-grade, averaging around 1.5% copper, instead of the 5% or so that is required for profitable tunnel mining. So the company proposes to go after the ore using a process called panel caving (a type of block caving). They propose to start underneath the ore body, design a system of collection tunnels, and then fracture the rock above, allowing it to fall into the collection areas where the ore will be removed.

The process will allow the mining of vast amounts of ore, but what they will be doing will amount to removing an entire mountain from beneath the surface. Holes of such size cannot be maintained as open space underground, so the mine will collapse in a supposedly controlled manner. At the end of the mine's usable "life", the crater is expected to be about a mile wide and as much as 1,000 feet deep. Bigger than Meteor Crater.

There are huge social and political issues. Many people are fully supportive because money, but it's never entirely clear who will truly benefit, and who will actually get the jobs, and which political entities will get the tax revenue to support the regional infrastructure. And there is no guarantee that the mining company itself will maintain economic viability for the next sixty years. Such things are hard to predict, and the American West is littered with abandoned and depressed towns that were promised much and ultimately received little.

And then there is the matter of honor and history. Soldiers chose to die here, defending their homeland and families. When all was lost, more than four dozen of them chose to jump off the cliffs rather than be taken by the enemy. It was around 1870, and the deaths occurred only 1,500 feet from the edge of the proposed crater.

If the soldiers were U.S. military, I suspect there would be a cacophony of voices raised in righteous anger about the desecration of hallowed ground, and historical heritage and all that. But no, the warriors were Apache. The copper mining company insists that they respect the Native American heritage, and they make all kinds of public relations noise, but a great many local tribes and nations are deeply opposed to the operation.

I'm okay with weighing the pros and cons of a project like this, assuming that all parties are heard, and their concerns dealt with. But there has to be a willingness to say no, that some places should not be destroyed for the sake of profits over all other factors. I'm disturbed when those with the money are the only ones heard in the discussion and that there is an assumption that it will go forward no matter what. But ultimately politics requires a fair and open vote in Congress. And that's where the problem lies. The project will require a land swap that gives up federal land for "ecologically sensitive" lands elsewhere. And Congress has turned it down a number of times.

So in a bit of bipartisan corruption, the land swap was placed in a piece of legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that had to be passed in 2014. It was a betrayal of trust on the part of people like Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake (speaking of corruption, Rep.Rick Renzi is in prison over crimes related to the land swap; and Senator Flake was once a lobbyist for Rio Tinto, one of the mine's corporate partners). This is the kind of political shenanigans that tells me that these plans need to be tabled for awhile. This isn't the way things should be done in our society.

How badly do we need this copper, really? And at what true cost? The entire situation has reeked of corruption and graft from day one. It's really strange that the Supreme Court Justice who has supported and enabled so much graft through the years was the one who dissented in this latest injustice. I keep hoping that the politicians will finally do the right thing, but my hope is fading as this situation continues to deteriorate. The current administration is only listening to the highest bidders from corporate America, and is unlikely to take any action. What faith I have is in those who are on the front lines protesting this invasion and rape of sacred land.

The Eruption of Mt. St. Helens at 45 years: Why it Still Matters and Why Science Matters

It is the 45th anniversary of the eruption of the St. Helens volcano and as I think of those days, I realize that even though a majority of the population wasn't even alive at the time, the volcano still matters. Not because of the potential for future eruptions (although that remains a distinct possibility), but because of the way we process and deal with the natural hazards that we all face, no matter where we live.

When the volcano began rumbling and sending ash into the atmosphere, we had only a few avenues to get information, mainly television news, radio, and newspapers. I think now how limiting these sources were compared to the nearly instantaneous delivery of news over the internet in the present day. We can look up earthquakes just moments after they happen, and webcams allow us to monitor volcanoes around the world in real time. There is both good and bad in this profound change. There were terrible sources of news in those olden days, like the Weekly World News or the National Enquirer, but they pale in comparison to the sewage found on the internet today. Back then, national news outlets and newspapers in most instances practiced careful journalism, but it often seems today that the only reward for excellence and honesty in reporting is decreased ratings and falling revenues. To get attention in a crowded internet environment media outlets have to dress their stories as shiny objects and provide them with the worst possible clickbait titles. In the olden days we often had to wait impatiently for information about natural disasters, but the information that came through the media was more often vetted and checked for accuracy. The journalistic filters today are practically gone in many media sources, and it can be difficult to distinguish between the trash and the truth.

There are so many conspiracy theories floating around today about natural disasters and potential disasters. The eruptions of Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park a few years ago after years of quiescence caused a blizzard of posts on the internet pondering whether Yellowstone has been disturbed and may blow as a "supervolcano" eruption soon (and we'll all die). The same has happened after a number of recent small earthquakes. But a reading of the reality-based data says that Yellowstone caldera has not had a lava flow or eruption of any kind in 70,000 years, and no knowledgeable geologist sees any evidence of precursors to any new eruptions. A few years back, an earthquake and an internet video of a group of bison running "away" from Yellowstone caused the same kind of internet speculation (it turns out the bison were running towards the caldera).




Of course it is true that the Yellowstone caldera was born in one of the most colossal eruptions ever recorded. Learning the story of the eruption of the Huckleberry Tuff is fascinating. It brings an entirely new appreciation of the incredible scenery to be observed in a place that contains 70% of all the world's geysers. It should be enough. But there are so many individuals out there who would like to make a buck by scaring people needlessly. And there are too many gullible and ignorant people out there who can't pick rational accounts out of the confusing mix of conspiracy theories that exist on the internet.




And then there is the Big Island of Hawai'i. There were some serious and tragic things going in 2018 when the longest eruption in recorded history reached a climax. The activity endangered lives and destroyed homes as Kilauea underwent major changes from the "norm" of the eruptions that had been ongoing for the last 35 years. The U.S. Geological Survey and Hawaiian civil defense authorities did a pretty good job of providing up-to-date information about the latest activity, but that didn't stop all kinds of stories from popping up on the internet about the "Ring of Fire" which has nothing at all to do with Hawai'i. It was just too easy to pick up stories of eruptions in Alaska and Indonesia and think there was a pattern of increasing volcanism or earthquake activity (OMG, a magnitude 6 quake in the Kermadec Islands and an eruption at Mt. Cleveland in Alaska! It's a pattern and therefore Seattle will fall into the sea very soon!). The problem is one of perspective: if you had signed up for earthquake notifications and volcano advisories from the USGS or other geologic research institutions, you would have realized that these things happen all the time, and that a cluster of events is not unusual.


It's one thing to make up stories about normal volcanic activity to scare people. One can argue that they are ultimately harmless because the eruptions aren't actually taking place or hurting anyone. But there are real-world consequences of ignoring journalistic standards. Many of those who make their money with false headlines about such things also traffic in climate change denial. When science becomes a matter of believing whatever one wishes, the very real problem of global warming becomes just another "scare" story, and the alarm bells being sounded by climate scientists become just more noise in an internet full of noise. But the real-world consequences are happening now, and action is needed to counteract the changes or at least slow them down. But it has become too easy to ignore the problem because it is so incremental and slow-acting. It just can't compete with the shiny baubles and clickbait on the web.

People in Hawai'i mostly trusted the geologists who studied the volcanoes all their lives and thus made the correct decisions about evacuating homes and businesses. In the same way they trusted the seismologists when a tsunami threatened the islands in 2011 after the massive earthquake in Japan. No lives were lost when the tsunami hit because people had evacuated the low-lying areas. The wave surge was 8 feet deep in places and caused millions of dollars of damage. Many people could have been killed, but they accepted the authority of the scientists who predicted the timing and magnitude of the seismically induced waves.

There has been one characteristic about the natural disasters that I've described above. They were local events that profoundly changed lives, but in large yet limited regions. When earthquakes and volcanic eruptions strike, survivors can turn to other regional state and national governments for support, since those entities were not so badly affected. Now we face a different set of natural disasters: those that affect the entire planet. Climate change affects all of us. The rise of sea level is is global. Searing heat waves and intensified storms are affecting the entire planet. Extensive droughts and crop failures are rippling through the world economy. And it's getting worse even as the federal government denies climate change at the behest of the fossil fuel industry and eliminates the scientific expertise needed to deal with it.

And then there are the pandemics. The COVID-19 virus spread to literally every corner and every country of the planet in a matter of weeks. Scientific experts had long predicted the emergence of dangerous new strains of viruses, and previous administrations used the best scientific minds to prepare for their inevitable arrival. But those administrations were replaced by one that denigrated scientific expertise and fired the experts who could have crafted an appropriate national response to the COVID-19 virus. We saw the result: more than one million deaths in the U.S., lack of critical medical supplies and stockpiles, and a poorly coordinated federal response. Even worse was the propaganda campaign that convinced people that the disease was not as bad as it clearly was. Other countries listened to their scientists and saved countless lives. We are instead loosened critical restrictions even as the infection continued to spread. And now those who made the pandemic far worse are back in power.

That's why the Mt. St. Helens eruption of 1980 matters today. Scientific expertise matters. Pandemics will be a continuing problem in our interconnected world. Climate change is an even more profound danger to society than any virus, earthquake or volcanic eruption. We need people to give climate scientists the same kind of respect they give geologists when volcanoes are rumbling and smoking. They are the ones to listen to, not the hucksters on the internet who are out to make a buck, or trying to protect those industries that make their profits off of producing greenhouse gases. We seem to talk little these days about integrity and striving for excellence, but scientific researchers are among those who still have those traits. They are the ones to listen to, not the click-bait seekers and profiteers.




There was a sign that popped up at some of the March For Science protests that happened in the years before the Covid epidemic: "At the start of every disaster movie there's a scientist being ignored". Unfortunately, it is too true in real life as well.

This has been a highly abridged and updated version of a previous St. Helen eruption anniversary reflection.

Do You Think You Know the Highest Waterfall in Yosemite Valley? You Could Be Wrong!

Quick quiz: What is the name of this waterfall?

What is the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley? Depending on the parameters one can use to determine "height", your assumption may be wrong! Most "authorities" recognize Yosemite Falls (2,425 feet/739 meters) as the highest in Yosemite Valley and North America, and somewhere around the fifth or seventh highest in the world. But it depends on how you decide to measure waterfalls. By a different metric, Yosemite Falls isn't even the highest waterfall in Yosemite Valley. It's the word "falls", in the plural, that makes the difference.

I was in Yosemite Valley yesterday, and the falls were flowing strong. There is no doubt that Yosemite Falls is one of the most stunning sights on the planet. A chance movement of a glacier 13,000 years ago forced a middling stream from its old channel to the left of the current waterfall, forcing Yosemite Creek to drop right off the edge of the sheer cliff. You can see the old channel almost hidden in the shadows in the photo above.

The fall makes a sheer plunge of 1,430 feet (440 meters) at the Upper Fall and then cascades through a series of steep ledges called the Middle Cascades for 675 feet (206 meters). There is a final drop of 320 feet (98 meters) at Lower Yosemite Fall. The Middle Cascades are generally hidden from view unless you hike the steep trail up to the top of the falls (below).

Part of the Middle Cascades (April 2003)

But if one decides to be a purist about such things, one can define a waterfall's height on the basis of the greatest freefall. By that metric, Yosemite Falls still is an imposing 1,425 feet (739 meters) high. But it also means it's not even the tallest waterfall in Yosemite Valley.

Many first-time visitors to the valley are drawn to Bridalveil Falls (620 feet/189 meters) because it is the first major waterfall visible as one enters the valley. But when standing at the base of Bridalveil, they may see another high waterfall across the valley west of the sheer cliff of El Capitan and wonder if it is Yosemite Falls. It's not. It's called Ribbon Fall, and it has a single drop of 1,612 feet (491 meters). That's nearly 200 feet higher than Upper Yosemite Falls (it's the one in the picture at the top of the post). It is less familiar than many of the other waterfalls because it is usually dry by June when the majority of people visit the park. But if you get the privilege of seeing by visiting in the spring, you are in for a treat.

Ribbon Fall (1,612 feet) to the left with the 2,900 foot cliff of El Capitan to the right

Ribbon Falls is one of many treasures that make a spring visit to Yosemite Valley a worthwhile endeavor. If you want to see another springtime waterfall over a thousand feet high, check out Sentinel Falls.

The Most Extraordinary Landscape on Planet Earth: Geotripping on the Colorado Plateau, June 3-17, 2025

Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River

NOTE: This is an updated and revised version of a post from December 28, 2024 

So...about that bucket list of yours. 

Surely you have one. If you don't, what's keeping you from making one? Here's a version I promoted a few years back (I've made it to around 70% of them so far and feel exceedingly lucky to have been able to do so).

In any case, how many of the following are (or should be) on your personal list? Possibly Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Petrified Forest, Capitol Reef, Yosemite, Great Basin, or Canyonlands National Parks? What about Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings at places like Bear's Ears or Grand Staircase-Escalante? Finding ancient petroglyphs along the Colorado River? Or searching for dinosaur bones? How would your life be changed if you could somehow do all these things...in one trip? It's possible!

Grand Canyon National Park

There is no place on this planet like the Colorado Plateau. It's hard to find anyplace else on Earth where the crust remained relatively stable for upwards of a billion years, accumulating several miles of horizontal sediments, only to be lifted up rapidly in the last few million. The Colorado River and her tributaries then stripped away much of the sedimentary cover, and cut deep into the underlying metamorphic rocks. Those metamorphic rocks record a violent geologic history of colliding landmasses and mountain-building. The resulting landscape is one of the most beautiful regions imaginable.

Angels Landing Trail in Zion National Park, Utah

The plateau country is a training ground for geologists and earth scientists, and has been since the days of John Wesley Powell and Joseph Ives, who were the first to lead research parties into the region (they didn't "discover" the plateau, of course; Native Americans have known the region for thousands of years). If you are curious about learning geology in this incredible region, you might consider joining us as a student (of any age) on our geology field studies course Geology 191: Geology of the Colorado Plateau, offered under the auspices of Modesto Junior College in Modesto, California. The course is designed to fulfil the curiosity and build the skills of lay geologists and archaeologists as well.

Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park

Our field course will be a grand loop through the plateau country, with investigations of the Mojave National Scenic Preserve, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, Petrified Forest, Capitol Reef, Great Basin and Yosemite National Parks, as well as many monuments, including Bear's Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Natural Bridges, and Navajo. It will be an unforgettable two week trip from June 3-17, 2025, beginning and ending in Modesto, California. Check the first comment to this post for information about the itinerary and our organizational meeting on April 21, 2025 (by Zoom).

Petroglyphs on the plateau

It's not a comfortable trip...we travel in school vans (which of course are known for their luxuriousness!), we camp every night, and the days can be hot, windy, cold, or stormy, and we are out in the middle of anything that happens. But we are staying in beautiful places each night, and there are even showers and laundry available every third day or so! Extensive hiking is not required, but there will be many chances to explore the trails in each park and monument.

Petrified Forest National Park

Geology 191 is a 3-semester-unit course. By end of the course, you will be able to see the landscape the way geologists do: by identifying rocks, minerals and fossils, and interpreting the geological history of an area by working out the sequence of events as exposed in outcrops. If you are a science teacher, you will come home with a collection of photographs that illustrate most of the important principles of geology, and a selection of rocks, minerals and fossils that will make a great classroom teaching tool (legally collected, of course; there are many localities outside of protected parks from which to collect samples). You will also gain some mastery of the archaeology and culture of the plateau region, the home of the Ancestral Puebloans, the Fremont people, the Navajo, the Utes, and others.

Canyonlands National Park, Utah

The cost of the trip will be $850 plus the cost of tuition (Currently $46 per unit for California residents, and around $307 per unit for out-of-state residents). The cost includes transportation, food, camp fees, and entrance fees. Participants would want to bring a few dollars along for showers, laundry, and souvenirs.  The food is tasty and plentiful (everyone helps cook and clean!), and the school vans...are vans.

House-on-Fire Ruin, Bear's Ears National Monument

If you are not in the area, we will be glad to arrange for transportation from nearby airports and train stations (we actually have an Amtrak station in town). Enrollment can be completed online once you are registered with the college (http://www.mjc.edu). Please contact me with any questions you may have.

Bryce Canyon National Park

Hope to see you out there, back of beyond!

The First Lunar Eclipse of 2025

Interesting skies once again! Tonight was a lunar eclipse. The timing was great, with totality being reached before midnight here in the Pacific Time Zone. But we are in the midst of a powerful Pacific storm, and I thought I wouldn't have a chance because of the cloud cover.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth ends up passing between the Sun and the Moon, and thus casting a shadow across the Moon's face. Lunar eclipses last longer than Solar eclipses because the Earth casts a much larger shadow, and it takes longer for the Moon to pass through it. 

The most interesting part of a Lunar eclipse is during totality when the darkened Moon picks up a faint red glow (the "Blood Moon"). Numerous stars are usually visible at that time, being normally invisible when the Moon is full and bright.

Clouds moved in and I figured the Blood Moon view was not going to happen and I came in the house and started writing up the post. I took one more trip outdoors and was treated to the total eclipse. I could have hoped for a better shot, but no one here is complaining as the next storm moves in.

An "Extinct" Fish Finds Life Again in a Parched Desert: The Saga of the Shoshone Pupfish

The pupfish habitat at the springs in Shoshone, east of Death Valley National Park

Of all the things one might look for while exploring intense desert environments, what is the most unlikely form of life you would expect to encounter? Fish of course. It's practically an oxymoron to use the term "desert fish". But in the harsh desert environments of eastern California and western Nevada, there are indeed fish. And not just a single species, but around a dozen species and subspecies. There are nine distinct populations of the Cyprinodon Pupfish, three species of Speckled Dace, and a Poolfish. How they survive today, and how they got there in the first place is a fascinating story.

How they survive is not difficult to understand: despite the aridity of the California desert, there are sources of water. There are permanent springs and pools of water scattered all around Death Valley and the Amargosa River Basin, and the fish have adapted to life in waters that might be hot, cold, fresh, or salty.

How they got there in the first place is a little trickier to understand. Our climate has been subject to huge variations over the last two million years, and more than a dozen times, it got much cooler and glaciers developed and expanded, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Some of the meltwater from those glaciers flowed into the deserts of the Basin and Range province and accumulated in huge freshwater lakes. As a lake basin filled (such as at Mono or Owens Lake), it spilled over into the next lake basin until a network of lakes extended from the Sierra Nevada to Death Valley. The Amargosa River flowed through western Nevada, also ending in Death Valley. So there was plenty of water once upon a time.

At some point in time, a connection was made with the Colorado River, and fish were able to make their way into the network of freshwater lakes, and they thrived. But as each glacial stage ended, the lakes would begin drying up and most of the fish lost their habitat and went extinct. But those very few species that could adapt quickly enough took refuge in the rare and isolated springs and pools. A few, including the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout survived in the cold streams, lakes and rivers of the eastern Sierra Nevada. Those trapped in saline waters had to adapt to the salty conditions. Some fish adapted to high temperatures,  and unlike pretty much any other fish in the world can survive in water that reaches a hundred degrees or more.

One of my very few photos of the Devils Hole Pupfish, taken from around 100 feet away.

Perhaps the most famous of these fish is the Devils Hole Pupfish (above), found in a single cavern opening in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (the spring officially lies in an outlier of Death Valley National Park). Their story is compelling, but they are not the fish I'm discussing today. You can read about them if you wish here or here.

 

The various populations of pupfish survived for thousands of years in isolation from human developments. But the colonization and occupation of the desert by miners and ranchers spelled doom for some of them. One species, the Tecopa Pupfish, was driven extinct pretty much in an afternoon when pipes were installed at the one spring where they lived. A similar fate apparently happened to a different subspecies, the Shoshone Pupfish (Cyprinodon nevadensis shoshone) in the 1960s as springs in that area were developed for domestic use at the village of Shoshone. The species was declared extinct in 1969, as none could be found anywhere.

Improbably, a small population of the fish actually survived the devastation of their original habitat by taking refuge in a nearby irrigation ditch, unnoticed by anyone. In 1986 they were rediscovered, and a cooperative effort by the private landowner and several environmental organizations resulted in a resurrected habitat. This habitat was actually expanded to three pools and some artificial off-site refuges as well. Despite visiting Shoshone yearly for the last three decades, I never heard about the efforts being made on behalf of the fish's well-being. 

That changed last week when I found out that a nature trail had been constructed, and interpretive signs posted that allowed for some close viewing of the diminutive fish (as well as another highly endangered creature, the Amargosa Vole). The site also serves as an excellent habitat for a large variety of birds, and we saw Western Bluebirds, Yellow-rumped Warblers, White-crowned Sparrows, a Costa's Hummingbird (a life-lister for me) and we could hear Verdins chattering away in the brush.

The trail is just off the main highway in Shoshone, and the locals seem proud of the efforts and can easily point the way to the trailhead, next to the local school. If you ever travel to Death Valley from the east, you can't miss the town. It's the only gas station and food stop for many miles. Don't forget to stop in at the local museum for a look at the Columbia Mammoth fossils on display inside!

 

Strange Doings in the Sky Today. What the Heck is a Circumzenithal Arc?

We live our lives never truly knowing when the day comes that something remarkable happens. I was doing totally normal errands today in the middle of town when I saw a sun dog, a common enough occurrence, but it was so bright I decided to snap a shot. But as I got out of the car, I realized something more complex had become visible, something I'm fairly sure I've never seen before. The sun dogs were connected to a halo around the sun, but at the top was an "upside-down" rainbow, like a giant smile in the sky.

I made use of a highly technological sun-blocking tool that I have in my pockets sometimes to try and bring out the colors a little better. In my capacity as an earth science instructor I generally teach about climate and weather, but phenomena related to the refraction of light off hexagonal ice crystals in the upper atmosphere gets lost in the concerns over global climate change and that sort of thing. So I haven't kept up the finer details of atmospheric refraction effects, and had to get a refresher about what I was seeing.

Source: Meteorology Today by Don Ahrens

There were five phenomena happening at once here, all related to the refraction of light in ice crystals in the upper atmosphere: a 22 degree halo, part of a 46 degree halo, two sun dogs, an upper tangent arc, and high above, the circumzenithal arc (the upside-down "rainbow"). I read that the arcs are not uncommon, but are noticed less because they tend to occur overhead where people don't tend to look. I didn't see it myself until I stopped on the way home to try and catch the arc again. It can be seen in the picture below.

Beautiful things can find you any time. You just need to watch for them!