Geologic Haiku

Tropical limestone ledges
High on Sierra peaks
A long journey completed

A new geology meme! Rules here. The picture is of Boyden Cave Roof Pendant deep in Kings Canyon in California's Sierra Nevada.

Wild Animals in the Field!

I love a good meme! Especially an interesting one that morphs a bit so one can come back and pick out some new pictures. Wild animals in the field are so infinitely interesting especially when we see something new. I have previously blogged the bear I saw last month, and the bighorn sheep I stumbled across at Capitol Reef National Park a few years ago. And of course, the cows that are taking over the planet. I appreciated C.V.'s contribution at Cryology and Co. regarding cows and the creation of the world.

Today's choices include a weasel I saw on the trail to the summit of Lassen Peak in northern California last year. It looked like a ground squirrel popping in and out of the rocks, but I realized it was probably looking for squirrels. I had never seen one of these before, so I kinda forgot about climbing Lassen (been there, done that; oh, for shame!), and sat down and waited. After about 30 minutes I got the shot I was hoping for. I wasn't that close, but I have a 12x zoom to work with. (Correction 12-11-09: it's actually an American Pine Marten; I don't know these furry animals as well as I should)

The second photo is a gopher snake I ran across during an eastern Sierra Nevada field trip in 2006. Reptiles seem so alien, especially seen up close. I can relate to thinking like a weasel, but reptilian brains are beyond me.

It recalled one of my other snake stories...one time I was driving a road on the outskirts of town and saw a juvenile snake in the roadway in eminent danger of being run over. I decided to do the nice thing and pick it up and put it in the nearby field. I looked at it very carefully (I live in rattler country, after all). No vee-shaped head; check. No rattles on the tail; check. Can't be a rattler, so I pick it up.

Its tail started rattling, and the head was magically vee-shaped, and it was trying to bite me!

I threw the snake into the field as fast as I could and went home and went on the internet. I knew gopher snakes often rattle their tails, and that they have a vicious disposition when picked up, but it was news to me that they can actually flatten their skulls to look like a rattlesnake!

It would have been an embarrassing story to tell in the emergency room...

The third is an owl I saw deep in the forest at Muir Woods National Monument, north of San Francisco. It was hard to photograph in the dark shadows, and I wasted a lot of digital space trying to get it. I really wondered if I had finally seen the elusive Spotted Owl. As it turns out, it was probably a Barred Owl, which is a somewhat invasive species that takes over from Spotted Owls in second-growth forests. Just the same it was a beautiful bird.

The Real Jurassic Parks: Arches National Park, continued. And an Eminent Threat.

I didn't really mean to leave everyone hanging in the Jurassic during our months-long tour of the geology of the Colorado Plateau, but I am easily distracted by things like work and politics. I want to at least make it out of the Mesozoic era before Thanksgiving, so I am picking up the thread where we left off on Oct. 17 with a visit to Arches National Park.

The stratigraphy of the park is relatively straightforward: the visible scenery mainly includes the Navajo Sandstone, the Dewey Bridge member of the Entrada Sandstone, and the Slickrock member of the Entrada. The Navajo Sandstone has a huge role in the scenery of other parks on the Plateau (see discussions here), but is mostly muted here. It is familiar to park tourists as the "petrified sand dunes" that can seen along the road in the south part of the park, and the very dramatic white rock along the park entrance road. The Dewey Bridge member is a "crinkly" layer of sand, silt and gypsum at the base of many of the arches. The reason for the deformed layers is unclear. One intriguing proposal is that a nearby asteroid impact distorted the layers (Upheaval Dome in Canyonlands National Park is the proposed impact site). Most of the arches occur in the Slickrock member, a cliff-forming layer that is obvious throughout the park.

The origin of the park's famous arches (there are hundreds) is tied to the salts of the Paradox Basin discussed earlier in this post. The salt beds are thousands of feet thick, and when placed under pressure, can slowly flow upwards through the overlying rock, forming domes and anticlines (upward pointing folds). Over millions of years, erosion removed thousands of feet of overlying sediment, and the salt was close enough to the surface to be affected by groundwater: it was dissolved away. The tops of the folds collapsed inwards, and the Entrada Sandstone was fractured (jointing) into a series of parallel fins. A large northwest trending anticline crosses the park; most of the arches occur along the flanks of the anticline.

The top of the fins are exposed to the arid desert climate, where the rock dries quickly following the infrequent storms. At the base of the fins, where the rock is buried by soil and loose sand, the rock may stay moist much longer. This leads to the solution of the cement holding the sandstone together, and the fins start to weather from below. Eventually a small window may open up, and falling slabs of rock enlarge the opening. The largest arch, Landscape, has an opening the length of a football field. Unfortunately, it is so thin and fractured that it may not last our lifetimes (it is in the third picture of the day). A large chunk fell about fifteen years ago. Wall Arch, another arch in the same area, just collapsed last summer.

Today's first photograph shows a small arch in the vicinity of Delicate Arch (a corner of Delicate is visible on the left side). The foreground includes tilted layers of the Entrada where they collapsed into the salt anticline. The La Sal Mountains can be seen in the distance.

The second photo shows my nomination for one of the most dramatic trails in existence, the one that leads to Delicate Arch. This is definitely a case where the end of the trail is not the main attraction; the whole trail is a treat, from one end to the other.

Unfortunately, politics and politicians don't stop politicking, elections or not. Arches, like the Grand Canyon is being threatened by the possibility of gas drilling just outside the park boundaries. The outgoing administration seems to be trying to run a fire sale on leases before they leave office in January. It is especially irritating that the Bureau of Land Management seems to be trying to fly under the public radar in their announcements. More information on the issue (and maps of the proposed leases) can be found here.

Domestic Mammals in the Field?

The question of the day concerns animals in the field...catch posts here and here. I was immediately reminded of a long-running discussion between my son and I about cows and whether cows are planning to take us over as the dominant species on the planet (recall the dolphins and mice of Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe). Some people think our country will be taken over by black helicopters; my son is more convinced it will be black cows.

I have disagreed in the past. I felt large roosters were the true threat. I especially think of one I met at Pipe Springs National Monument that I named Tyrannosaurus pecks (no pictures though, I was running away). The wounds were painful...

During an exploration of some wild caves in the Sierra Nevada foothills, I found my assumptions about chickens to be wrong. Rounding a corner, we were faced with a vanguard of the coming invasion...I had the same feeling that King Arthur must have experienced when he met the Knights Who Say Nit (Monty Python's Holy Grail), or maybe the white rabbit.

Seriously though, there are some great caves in our neck of the wood. I have a smattering of photos posted here. One of our Sierra caves (Lilburn in Kings Canyon National Park) has something like 17 miles of passageways. Info on caves of Sequoia and Kings Canyon can be found here.

Geology and Politics: Trying to Get Back To Normal...

A kind of 'mini-meme' developed in the last few days as many geobloggers from the U.S. (and a few others, I'm sure) were carefully watching the returns from the presidential elections. It has involved the relationship of geology to politics.


Brian at Clastic Detritus noticed a correspondence between counties who increased their Republican vote, and the location of the Appalachian Orogen. No geologic explanation for the Arizona vote is clear, however.


Eric at Dynamic Earth noted some shocking deficiencies on the part of one of the candidates on her ignorance of Africa and the signatories to NAFTA (the North America Free Trade Agreement; there are only three countries in North America to choose from...). Admittedly, this post is more about geography, but there is a 'geo' in there. [UPDATE: I sort of fail the "three countries in NA; there are quite a few island nations and territories, i.e. Greenland, Bermudas, etc. that are included with North America. I was thinking in continental terms]

Callan Bentley at NOVA Geoblog has a link to a map of the US that is tied not to geography, but to the proportion and influence of voters. If you thought the election was crazy, this map is on drugs. BTW, way to go Virginia!

In my last post I was using a flood analogy to express my hopes for the outcome of the election, talking also of landslides and tsunamis. It gave me this great idea of blogging on the use of geologic terms in describing politics and other social phenomena. I started to develop the idea in more detail, and then happened upon Lee Allison's Arizona Geology blog. He beat me to the punch in a big way: check it out here, and here. Lee also has a couple of great posts on politicians who started out as geologists, here and here. I had no idea that Colin Powell had a geology degree, but I bet it helped during the planning for the first Iraq war. Herbert Hoover I knew about; I remember reading a story of his fight for reimbursement from the USGS:

"A favorite story deals with his job as disbursing officer for a United States Geological Survey party. When a pack mule was found dead, the rules required Hoover and two witnesses to investigate the cause of death. They found a loose hind shoe caught in the animal's neck halter. So they reported that it had broken its neck while scratching its head with a hind foot. The bureau in Washington refused to accept this “tall story,” and charged the party $60 for the lost animal. From that time on Hoover watched mules to confirm the fact that they could scratch their heads with a hind foot."

I hope this gets the politics out of my system for now. I know I am sick and need help; this morning I actually clicked on this:

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/marist_matchups_for_the_2012_p.php

Go ahead, I dare you.....

Today's photo represents change happening "at a glacial pace", and shows the Saskatchewan Glacier in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. It has a source in the Columbia Icefield, and along with the Athabasca Glacier shows the effects of global warming, having retreated over a mile in the last century.

How it was: Yosemite Valley on Saturday (and a political endorsement)

One more picture from last Saturday, and a look at the anatomy of a fall flood event in Yosemite Valley. I doubt any damage was done, since the high flow was average for a normal spring runoff day in April. But not for November! The river went from around 20 cubic feet per second to a record 1,160 cfs in a matter of hours as a result of a warm storm. The previous record was around 650 cfs for the date. The rushing waters were dark with mud and dirt that had accumulated in the riverbeds for the last six months or so of no rain and low river flows. A cleansing was taking place.

I realize this will be a clumsy analogy, but I am hoping that this day, November 4, will be an unexpected flood of a different kind. I blog because I love geology and I want to share my stories and my pictures with whoever finds them interesting. But I learned blogging from politics...I am a political junkie at heart, and for years I waited for news from newspapers (in the really olden days), and from 24 hour cable news (in the somewhat less olden days), and from the internet over the last couple of years. For months now, I have haunted the internet "tubes" for every tidbit of evidence that the political winds in my country are finally changing. And I feel like a storm is coming, one that will cleanse this country of the filth that has accumulated over the last eight years.

How is it that a country that stands for freedom and justice and equality ended up in an unjustified and tragic war of choice that has killed more than 4,000 of our best? How did we end up as a country that imprisons people without due process, and which condones torture? When did we tear up our own constitution?

I have been waiting for my country to wake up and repudiate those who have subverted justice and law to their own ends. There is hope, in that the current occupant of the White House has the lowest approval ratings in polls ever recorded. There is hope that the Senate and House fell into the hands of a different party in 2006, even though they haven't accomplished much in these two years. But most of all I find hope that a good man named Barack Obama stands at the threshold of being elected president. He has been the target of one of the slimiest and most negative political campaigns ever conducted in American history, and has fought back with grace and leadership. I would never have thought a moment in history like this was possible. But maybe, maybe this day it will happen. I hope for a landslide, a flood, a tsunami, to wash away the stains that Bush and Cheney have left on our reputation as a country of justice and law.

Be sure to vote today. If they try to stop you with long lines, with too few voting machines, or electronic machines that don't accurately record your choices, fight for your right to have your vote counted. Don't be intimidated. Voting is a right that many have died for, and this day no one can deny you.

Here's to hope...

How It Was: Yosemite Valley Yesterday...

I was in Yosemite Valley yesterday with our campus Geology Club; it was raining, rather heavily at times. Did it spoil our trip? Not by a long shot...it was a hardy crew who knew it would be wet. It turned out to be one of my finest trips ever (and those who follow this blog know I am there a lot!). Fall in Yosemite means lots of beautiful color in the trees, but waterfalls are generally expected to be dry. Instead, for us, Yosemite Falls was a mere trickle at noon, but by three o'clock, they were booming like it was spring runoff. Apparently we witnessed a record set by the Merced River. It rose in one day from 20 cubic feet per second to 1,160 cubic feet per second (the previous high flow record for November 1 was 645 cfs; current data is here). And it looked the part, the water was brown and sudsy and full of debris. It was an extraordinary privilege to be in the Valley that day.. it was beautiful and thrilling at the same time.

Update: those of you wondering how the most beautiful tree in the world looked after two weeks, it's lost all of its leaves already. But there were PLENTY of others!