Spectacular Red Rock Cliffs near Flagstaff - Not Sedona!

Just outside of Flagstaff lies an unknown landscape - forgotten, wild, and surreal. The colors and textures are electric. My friend Scott Thybony took myself and three others out here on a blue-bird winters day in February. We live for this kind of exploration and were not disappointed.

The approach and the openness of a wild land.

Resembling a Navajo hogan, this rocky outcrop serves as a guidepost to the natural wonders of the Adeei Ecchi Cliffs. These strata belong to the eolian (wind-blown) Jurassic Wingate Sandstone (about 205 Ma). Just about 10 miles from here, the unit grades into the Moenave Formation, a fluvial (river) deposit. A reconstruction of the Early Jurassic landscape as documented by these changing lithologies, reveals a desert dune environments encroaching on an arid floodplain. The modern Persian Gulf is a great analogy.

First stop, a trackway site with over 400 dinosaur footprints.

Some are very well preserved with clearly delineated claw marks.

Moving toward the cliffs.

A preview of the strange erosional forms here.

Normally, wind has very little power in eroding and shaping landforms in the southwest. It does often transport grains away that are already dislodged. But the wind probably has little eroding power. The relatively weak cementation here allows for the likely sculpting by the wind.

Especially along weaker cemented horizons like the thin pedestal seem here.

Remarkable, isn't it.

Note the obvious cross-bedding highlighted by alternating layers of oxidized (red) and reduced (green to white) horizons along specific beds.

Looking out toward Gray Mountain to the west and the Grand Canyon area. Wide-eyed boys enjoying wide-ranging views,

An old Navajo hogan in ruins. The hogan is constructed of gray limestone beds from within the Wingate Sandstone. I had never before seen limestone beds from the Wingate. They are quite common in the overlying Navajo Sandstone and represent oasis' deposits during the Jurassic when the water table was high. If algae is present in the oasis ponds, calcium will be secreted and deposited. as limestone

A wonderland of seemingly jumbled rocks. But most of these have not moved and have merely weathered in place

During uplift, a consistent joint pattern is imprinted in the rock mass and erosion can attack these vertical lines of weakness to ultimately create ghost-like forms. Full moon night hike anyone?

Differential weathering - the well-cemented horizons protrude outwards, the weaker cemented horizons are indented. These conditions were imprinted while the rocks were still buried but upon being exposed, the forms take shape.

Cross-section of a dune. Note the darker wedges of sand coming in from the upper right. These are sand flow toes - formed when the crest of dune becomes oversteepened in a windstorm and then cascades down the leeward side. The direction of dip documents the direction of dune migration and wind direction. Sorry YEC's. These features are ubiquitous in arid dune environments today and the rocks were not formed in a world-wide flood from the Superstition Period. No offense meant - just sayin'.

One has to imagine that these forms are constantly changing - well, at least with respect to deep time. Something like this might change drastically in only 1,000 years. Or not.

Underlying the Wingate Sandstone is the Chinle Formation, soft gray mudstone that gives rise to the famous Painted Desert landscape. Here, Wingate Sandstone boulders have come to rest in equi-distant positions along the base of the small cliff. It reminded me of spokes in a wheel. Thanks Scott for a great day of exploration on our own two feet!

A Winter Grand Canyon Hike

Sorry everyone - I took a month off. I am now back to blogging. This first post after my break highlights a winter hike down to Phantom Ranch in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. This is an excellent time to be here.

Photo by Gina Longo

The temperatures this time of year are usually the cold side in the morning but the sun is often out and by 10 AM is is nice and warm. Here I am answering a question by one our guests on the South Kaibab Trail.

Photo by Gina Longo

In spite of the cool temperatures, it's always a good idea to get an early start on the trail. That gets us to the destination sooner where more fun can be had!

About three miles down the South Kaibab Trail is this eroded breccia pipe. Breccia is an Italian word for very angular deposits. However, the word pipe signifies a cylindrical shape that extends through the strata for thousands of feet. These are important features in the Grand Canyon region because many of them are rich in Uranium. We can say that the breccia pipes are uraniferous. Of course, this one will never be mined because it is inside the national park. But those located outside the park are sometimes mined. These features form on top of a cave whose roof progressively collapses with the material coming to rest on the cave floor. Through time, the process leaves a vertical shaft filled with breccia - a perfect environment for soluble uranium to precipitate out into the matrix of the breccia.

At the Tip-Off, about five miles in, we saw the mules hauling out trash from Phantom Ranch. What an essential Grand Canyon scene!

Look at this lovely woman fixing of lovely trail lunch - yum! Helen, my wife, is seen in her element along a Grand Canyon trail. She added so much to the success of this trip.

A young Bighorn sheep watching the hikers go by the trail. That's Buddha Temple in the background capped by a thin layer of the Toroweap Formation which rests on top of a thicker white band of the Coconino Sandstone (note the thin planar band at the contact of the two).

The same sheep now seen in front of Zoroaster Temple.

This is the River Trail paralleling the Colorado River. It is one of my favorite day hikes while staying in the Phantom Ranch area. It was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 using a lot of dynamite.

As luck would have it, we saw the Park Service mules bringing down the groceries for the rangers.

Helen raced ahead and got everyone's keys to their cabins. This is Norma Longo, a friend with whom I have traveled with before. She is also a geologist and was doing this hike for the second time.

There were still golden cottonwood leaves in the early winter.

Photo by Gina Longo

Wayne and Norma on the River Trail.

A beautiful scene on trhe Bright Angel Trail in the Tapeats Narrows.

This passerby was standing along the Bright Angel Fault as it cuts through the Redwall Limestone, so I asked him to admire the fault for scale. The two buttresses on either side of the wall are on the upthrown side of the fault (about 150 feet of offset here). The wall has been sheared smooth by movement along the fault.

The cavities formed when groundwater percolated through the downthrown block and intercepted the fault. All of this. - fault movement and cavity formation occurred while the area was still buried and before the Grand Canyon formed. Later erosion (helped with a bit of dynamite) then exposed the rocks.

The Jacob's Ladder section along the Bright Angel Trail.

If you would like to come with me and Helen on an informative Grand Canyon trek while staying in cabins two nights at Phantom Ranch (meals included!), write to me to reserve space on two trips I am offering next December! I hope to see you there!

The Galapagos Islands

I recently returned from a five-day cruise in the Galapagos Islands aboard the ship Santa Cruz II. I was hired to give lectures on behalf of Smithsonian Journeys. It was an excellent trip all around - the weather, the sites visited, participants and naturalist crew aboard the Santa Cruz II!

The tour began in Quito the colonial capital of Ecuador (elevation 9,350 ft.). This view is from the hill called El Panecillo (the Little Loaf).

The drying laundry made for an interesting composition.

The Pre-Columbian Alabado Museum has exquisite displays and I found this sculpture of two owls fascinating.

The beautiful courtyard of the Iglesia de San Francisco. Brown-robed monks still walk the halls.

Just a few miles north of Quito lies the equator where a monument has been built. The yellow line marks the equator, which splits the building in the background.

Looking west at the Mitad del Mundo Monument (Middle of the World Monument).

I thought placing the large globe on top of the Monument in a proper orientation for this location - on its side - made for a clever and interesting perspective. I feel so fortunate to have stood at both poles of the earth as well!

Looking east from the top of the monument. The indigenous population had a celestial observatory on the hill in the background.

Finally! The Galapagos. Our first stop was on the largest island, Isabela, and this is Punta Vicente Roca on the northwesternmost spur of the island.

On this cruise we visited Isabela, Fernandina, Santa Cruz and Floreana islands. I especially enjoy this western itinerary in the Galapagos as the archipelago sits over a stationary hot spot with the islands drifting east through time over it such that the most active and recently formed islands are in the west.

At anchor, I took this picture of Fernandina Island to the south - a classic shield volcano.

The Santa Cruz II anchored at Punta Vicente Roca beneath the Ecuador Volcano. Note how dissected the volcano has become.

This is due to the crashing of large Pacific waves from the open sea to the west. The severe erosion has exposed the volcanic plumbing system here and you can see numerous dikes running upwards.

Notice the chilled margins on this dike. When the hot magma forces its way into the country rock, it cools quicker on its margins while hot magma continues to move upwards. This is a text-book example.

Check this out! Two black dikes run upwards through the gold-colored tuff and then connect to the black lava flow on top of the hill. This is a rather rare glimpse showing how the internal plumbing system of a volcanic eruption (magma) reached the surface and turned into a lava flow. Fantastic! Scroll up six images to see a wide angle view of the lava flow capping the tuff (image starting with the word "Finally!").

A marine iguana rests on a bed of volcanic tuff. Much of this point is composed of tuff which is ash-sized grains that encircle a tuff cone. Tuff cones form with the interaction of seawater and magma.

A Brown noddy (Anous stolidus) stands on a well-rounded boulder encased in the tuff. This basalt boulder was likely rounded in the swash zone along the beach, then was caught up in the eruption of the tuff cone. That is how I explained a well-rounded boulder in the tuff.

Green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas) were everywhere at Punta Vicente Roca.

Next we saw the rare Galapagos penguin (Spheniscus mendiculus), one of 18 species worldwide and the only equatorial penguin in the world. I have seen 11 or 12 species.

Close-up of the flightless cormorant on the left (Phalacrocorax harrisi) and the Galapagos penguin. I guess that since this species of penguin has made it to the equator (thus inhabiting every climate zone from polar to equatorial), there would be nothing ecologically to keep penguins confined to the Southern Hemisphere.

Moving south to Fernandina Island, I looked back at Isabela and took this photo of the Wolf Volcano.

The westernmost islands are not only good for recent geology but wildlife as well. Just offshore is the edge of the Galapagos Bank, a wall of volcanic rock that drops steeply to the west causing the upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water. Many animals, like this marine iguana, take advantage of this upwelling and the abundance of food it provides.

Our local guides told us that this particular pahoehoe lava flow was about 500 years old.

A lava cactus (Brachycereus nesioticus) grows out of the pahoehoe.

In the Galapagos you will find Earth's only marine-going iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus). Note the hole on the tip of its snout - they drink seawater but process out the salt and then blow it out these specialized tubes.

Close-up.

The lava flows trap water on their surface and this reflection of our group enticed me to take a shot.

A flittering Galapagos mockingbird (Mimus parvulus) brought our attention to a first for me. A Galapagos racer (Pseudalsophis biserialis) was slithering along a crack in the lava. The mockingbird may have been protecting eggs.

The Galapagos hawk (Buteo galapagoensis) posed for 1/2 an hour on a nearby branch. None of the animals here have a fear of humans.

A regal rest in the late afternoon sunlight.

Mighty claws of the marine iguana. The feed on algae that grows at the waters edge.

A land iguana (Conolophus suncristatus). See one of my previous posts here for more and better pictures of these amazing reptiles.

On Santa Cruz Island we drove into the highlands where we visited a lava tunnel. The farmer who owns the land above it has provided lighting in it but what struck me was seeing that the walls exposed layered agglutinate, blobs of airborne lava that was ejected from a nearby cone, landing while still hot such that a rootless or ventless lava flow formed. This means that the tunnel did not form from a fluid mass of erupted lava per se, but rather the still hot ejecta that flowed downhill. I had never known lava tunnels could form this way.

The big attraction in the highlands was seeing these giant tortoises (Chelonoidis nigra).

They do love the mud. I think it is cool for them.

Typical creep of tortoises. (Yep, that is what a group of tortoises is called).

Our last stop was on Isla Floreana were we visited Post Office Bay. Whalers began the tradition centuries ago, leaving letters in a barrel that would be returned home by homeward-bound whalers. I picked up three postcards to mail to Nebraska, Prescott and New Zealand. I left two to be mailed to Arizona and California.

Checking the postcards for possible return home.

Volcano along the shores of Floreana Island.

The Devil's Crown - an eroded volcano just offshore.

Blue-footed boobie (Sula nebouxii) on Floreana Island. Males display these colorful feet to attract females.

A Galapagos beach at sunset.

A lagoon on Floreana Island.

Sunset.

Our naturalist crew was one of the best I have ever worked with! From left they are Indira, Mari, Fatima, Desiree, Ricardo, Veronica, Sebastian, and Nessi.

Thanks as always for reading! Next stop - Death Valley in February.