More of Namibia - The Living Desert

The Namib is a very dry desert but not at all dead. Many thousands of species live here from strange looking plants to colorful, adaptive animals. Here is a sampling of some of the things we saw.
Trips out into the Namib are faciltated by great guides and here is one of the best - Tommy of the Namib. Deserts seem to draw out the little kid in everyone and although Tommy is in his 50's chronologically, he is a kid at heart. What a trip we had with him at home in "his office".




This is a plant known as Welwichia. It has only two leaves that grow away from a central stem but it looks like many more since the wind shears them apart. Some welwichias can be 1500 years old.

The welwichia is a diaceous plant meaning that it has male and female plants. Here is a picture of the female plant.






Tommy loved to find snakes, scorpions, chameleons - anything that moved and he was an expert in finding them! Here is a venemous sidewinder snake that he found in a clump of bushes.





Check out the feet on this little transparent gecko! It can dig into the sand and breath while buried to escape the summer heat. Tommy followed a faint trackway that disappeared into the sand and dug this little guy up from down below. Awesome!




If people have heard anything at all about the animals in the Namib, it is probably about this beetle that climbs the crest of a dune, puts its butt in the air where fog droplets coalesce and run down its body into its mouth. Water without rain. Tommy collected about 6 of these along the way as they scurried about.



And then we saw a chemeleon! Fadcinating creatures that have independent eye sockets that can look with one over its back while the other looks forward. Who would have thought that something this large would live in the Namib?




And then we learned why Tommy was collecting all of those beetles.






He called them "chameleon hamburgers"






Ouch! Look at that tongue. It all happened so quick too. I am sure that this chameleon just waits by the side of the dunes for Tommy to bring his guests by every afternoon, knowing that lunch will be delivered by his favorite guide.

It's a about the dunes out here though - they are fantastic and they are a great modern analog for many ancient sandstones we see exposed in the American Southwest. In fact these coastal dunes are great analogs for the Schnebly Hill Formation in Sedona or the the Toroweap Formation in the Grand Canyon.


Here's the crest of a dune. The windward side in on the left with the wind ripples and the leeward side is the steep slope down to the right. These are cross-beds in formation!

The Namib Desert - Great Geology!

Our private jet trip has resumed with a four hour flight across the equator and on to the country of Namibia (the former South West Africa). With a population of less than 2 million but the size of Texas and Louisiana combined, it is the second least densely populated country on earth (after Mongolia). But to the geologist it is a paradise! Look at the pics.
This is the "moon landscape" as they call it in Nmibia, located near the coastal town of Swakopmund. It is a tortured land and banded gneiss, and only a few millimeters of rain per year. We toured this area in vans.

Here is a pretty good look at an outcrop of gneiss. This metamorphic rock formed about 600 million years ago when sediments were crushed and buried in a great mountain building event.

The gneiss rocks were probably at quite a depth (15 miles?) to be cooked this much. But below them, things were even hotter and some of those rocks were melted to become magma, which traveled upwards into the gneiss as magma. When these dikes were emplaced they were likely very tabular in shape but continued squeezing and crushing caused them to take this contorted shape. Imagine the amount of material eroded to bring all of this back to the surface today!

Here is further evidence of the extreme compression of the rocks. When the Kalahari craton collided with the Congo craton some 600 Ma, it created the Damara mobile belt, essentially the area between the two that was 'bruised" in the collision. Wow - it's a living planet!

This is the graphic I used on the jet to explain the concept of two continental fragments colliding to create a mobile belt. Notice the two cratons (light colored areas) and the collision zone between them. Swakopmund and the moon landscape are in the dark belt near the town of Walvis Bay.

Burkina Faso - Land of Honest People

Yep - that's what the name Burkino Faso means in one of the hundreds of languages spoken in this country, only the size of the state of Colorado. Some people might remember its former colonial name of Upper Volta. This clean and colorful place is also peaceful. We left on the U.S. inauguration day and there were visible signs that Africa is ready for an Obama administration. We saw elephants, colorful villages, vibrant markets and one great outcrop of sandstone. I'll let the pictures do the talking.


The Kazenga Reserve - envisioned and articulated by a Canadian living in Upper Volta in the 1970's is obviously a very forward thinking kind of preservation. We watched elephants bath and swim underwater in this large pond.






Check out these homes in the village of Tielebe near the southern border with Ghana. They are made of adobe bricks and painted by hand.







Here's an "alleyway" I wandered down while everyone in the village was at the dance.The pots are used to get water or to store millet.







These are the warrior dancers of Tiebele. Everyone looked quite healthy and well nourished. We found out that food resources are allocated to the men first, then the young boys, then women. Children are the last ones on the list - they do this so that only the strongest ones survive. Different for sure but not a bad strategy.



The villagers looking on at the dancers.









The mosque in the town of Bobo Dioulasso. The sticks in the walls are used to climb and repatch the adobe. How exotic. We got to go onto the roof of the mosque.









Entering the "Domeland" near the town of Banfora in the southwest of the country. We used the private jet to fly 130 miles away this day.


What a great outcrop of early Paleozoic sandstone. I saw both symetrical and asymetrical ripple marks in the deposit and it was coarse-grained. It looked a lot like the Cambrian deposits in western North America.


We rarely stop at geologic sites on these trips but everyone was fascinated by this place.


At home on the rocks!

More from Madeira

On Friday we took a jeep tour on the island to the west of Funchal. The island is quite steep and the driver used 4-wheel drive on some paved roads (not for the faint of heart but we have a few on the trip). We got this great view of the "Nun Valley" and the small settlement located in the valley floor. The sky was dark with clouds and the picture is not bright but the depth of the valley was impressive and clearly showed that this island has experienced many catastrophic landslides. Ancient soils (paleosols) are interbedded with the many lava flows, that in this view dip from left to right. It looked to me like the settlement in Nun Valley was built on the toes of some of these landslides. Yikes!











Here are a couple of views of Cabo Girao west of Funchal. This is claimed to be the second highest sea cliff in the world after one in Taiwan. (They obviously must mean sea cliffs that tourists drive to). It's hard to get some perspective on this but I guessed it to be at 2,500 ft. straight down. In the first pic you can barely see fields of crops along the shoreline. It was very impressive and again testifies to the power of waves and gravity to shape coastlines in the Atlantic Ocean.















And a volcanic cliff near our place at the Reid's Palace Hotel. Note how the visible flows of basalt rock dip towards the sea (away from the vents higher up on the island.













Reid's Palace Hotel, Madeira







Funchal towards the ocean






Funchal towards the interior


We'll be traveling now to the mainland of Africa and in the country of Burkina Faso. Internet service is an unknown for me so be patient as we will explore for 3 days. I'll post again when I can.

Madeira Island - A Very Volcanic Place

The first stop on this jet journey is the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. I've been here a few times before (by ship) but this is the first time by air. This is the view we had from our Explorer 757 jet as we descended along the east coast of the island. This is a 5 milion year old volcano that rises 4 miles above the deep floor of the Atlantic Ocean (3 miles of this are below sea level). The upper one mile is spectacular and is obviously dissected along the coast by waves that cut into the rocks.



A view of the small eastern settlement called Machico on Madeira.





And a view from the balcony of my hotel room at the Reid's Place towards the city of Funchal.

London Arrival - Cape to Cape by Private Jet

Ah London in January!






Where the temperature swings tremendously from 35 in the day to 34 at night. A one degree temperature swing! I don't think that could happen in Arizon even in the Ice Age. But why ponder the Ice Age when it is alive and well in England. Nevertheless, the Dorchester Hotel is a warm place to get out of the London fog and that is where our group assembled on January 14.

A few pictures are included.
The cheapest rooms (like mine) are only £395 (about $580 per night at the current exchange rate - this same room would have been $800 six months ago). The Royal Penthouse here is £17,000 per night (about $25,000 today or $34,000 six months ago). The amounts boggle the mind. There is no water shortage ever in England so I took a long, hot bath after the trans-Atlantic flight.













I'll write more from our first stop on Madeira Island in the Atlantic Ocean!

2008 - A Banner Year in Grand Canyon Origin Research

Although financial analysts may cringe when you mention the year 2008, Grand Canyon geologists can smile wide - it was a banner year for geologic research regarding how and when the canyon may have formed. No less than ten new research papers were generated by a host of workers, who saw evidence ranging from a canyon that suddenly "appeared" on the landscape 5 to 6 million years ago, to that which advocates for a canyon that was cut in the same location (but into Mesozoic-age rocks now completely gone) over 50 million years earlier. You've got to love a landform as world famous as this, that can stump the experts and whose age cannot be resolved any clearer than by a factor of 10! The list of these papers was compiled by my colleague Carol Hill of Albuquerque who had a big hand in stimulating so much discussion of the topic.

A highlight during 2008 was a segment aired by Ira Flatow on "Science Friday" in March. He interviewed Victor Polyak about his controversial paper that suggested a portion of the Grand Canyon may have been in existence 17 Ma. And the first caller in to the segment was none other than the "dean" of Grand Canyon-origin geologists Ivo Lucchitta. You would have thought that Victor had suggested the canyon was only 17 weeks old from the response by some! In my opinion, the publicity about his paper was a good thing: having geology and the Grand Canyon in the national spotlight! But as so often happens, scientists shot themselves in the foot when the rash of negative publicity squashed any further exposure (NPR's "All Things Considered" was 'considering' (pardon the pun) running a longer piece about the canyon, but certain negative publicity generated by the "young canyon police" assured that it disappeared from the airwaves.

Here's the list of papers:

(1) December, 2007: Karl Karlstrom et al published in GSA Bulletin: 40Ar/39Ar and field studies of Quaternary basalts in Grand Canyon and model for carving Grand Canyon: Quantifying the interaction of river incision and normal faulting across the western edge of the Colorado Plateau. They argue for late Neogene uplift to drive the final 900 meter incision of the canyon.

(2) February, 2008: Steve Cather et al published in GSA Bulletin: The Chuska erg: Paleogeomorphic and paleoclimatic implications of an Oligocene sand sea on the Colorado Plateau. They suggest that deep incision of the landscape began after late-Oligocene/early-Miocene epeirogenic uplift of the Plateau.

(3) March, 2008: Polyak, Hill, and Asmerom published a very controversial paper in Science: Age and Evolution of the Grand
Canyon Revealed by U-Pb Dating of Water Table–Type Speleothems. In this they argue that certain cave formations (speleothems) can document the progressive lowering of the water table which may document incision of the Grand Canyon. Some of the dates come out at around 17 million years ago. A battle of sorts ensues as "younger" canyon enthusiasts defend the sacrosact 6 million year date.

(4) March, 2008: Hill, Eberz, and Beucher publish in Geomorphology: A Karst Connection model for Grand Canyon, Arizona, USA. This paper explains how the integration of the modern Colorado River could have been accomplished by subsurface karst piping and eventual collapse in eastern Grand Canyon.

(5) March, 2008: Joel Pederson published in GSA Today: The mystery of the pre–Grand Canyon Colorado River—Results from the Muddy Creek Formation. Joel postulated how the paleo-upper Colorado River dissipated and infiltrated in the central-western Grand Canyon area, providing a potential source for Miocene spring and evaporite deposits in the Grand Wash trough, implying a groundwater-driven mechanism for capture of the upper drainage.

(6) April, 2008 Flowers et al published in GSA Bulletin: Unroofing, incision, and uplift history of the southwestern Colorado Plateau from apatite (U-Th)/He thermochronometry. An important new idea that suggests little post-Laramide uplift of the Plateau and that a "pre-Grand Canyon" was cut in Mesozoic-age rocks directly on top of todays canyon.

(7) May, 2008: Dick Young published a GSA Special Paper: Pre-Colorado River drainage in western Grand Canyon: Potential Influence on Miocene Stratigraphy in Grand Wash Trough. Showing his versatility in taking many sides of an argument, Young sees evidence for a "precursor western Grand Canyon that may have been filled with Hualapai Limestone.

(8) July, 2008: Hill and Ranney publish in Geomorphology: A proposed Laramide proto-Grand Canyon. Using data from the distribution of different gravel types both north and south of the modern canyon, they show that some kind of a barrier to gravel transport (a proto-canyon) may have been in existence during the Laramide.

(9) September, 2008: Two reviews of Polyak et al's March Science paper by Pederson et al, and by Pearthree et al: Comment on “Age and Evolution of the Grand Canyon Revealed by U-Pb Dating of Water Table–Type Speleothems. Polyak et al gave a rebuttal to these two reviews: Response to Comments on the “Age and Evolution of the Grand Canyon Revealed by U-Pb Dating of Water Table–Type Speleothems, defending their model and showing how most geologists don't really understand cave forming hydrology.

(10) November, 2008: Karlstrom et al paper in GSA Geology: Model for tectonically driven incision of the younger than 6 Ma Grand Canyon. Here they try to discount the Polyak et al idea.

(11) November, 2008: Ron Blakey and Wayne Ranney publish: Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. Although not specifically related to the origin of the canyon, this book illuminates how the landscape of the entire Plateau came to be. It is a watershed work in that it can be used by professional geologists and it is useful to non-scientists as well.

This certainly was "The Grand Canyon Year". More papers are upcoming in 2009 so stay tuned to the topic and this blog! Right now I am off to Africa and South America on a lecturing trip. Watch for the updates and photos.

A Train Trip to Copper Canyon in Mexico

During election week in the USA, I was serving as a Study Leader for Smithsonian Journey's. This is the travel program for members of the Smithsonian and we were traveling down in the Copper Canyon region of Chihuahua, Mexico. Most of my fellow passengers were happy to be away from the many TV ads, especially those from Florida and Pennsylvania. I don't think there was a chance that even one in our group of 27 travelers was an undecided voter. Nonetheless, we were headed down to warm and sunny Mexico on the private Sierra Madre Express train.


Our group assembled at the historic Arizona Inn in Tucson, built in 1930 when the last big depression hit the world economy. On Halloween morning, we made a stop at the Arizona State Museum and Mission San Xavier del Bac before crossing the border at Nogales and driving to the rail station in Magdalena del Kino.

It was here that Fray Eusebio Kino, the father of the Sonoran and Arizona Spanish missions died and was buried somewhere on the mission grounds. About 30 years ago, workers discovered some bones while digging there. The related artifacts that were included in the burial led some people to believe that this was the burial site of the good Father. His bones are now proudly displayed in a glass case outside the front doors of the mission church. Scenes like this may be a bit macabre for people of English heritage but this is one of the larger tourist attractions in northwest Mexico. Viva Padre Kino!




After traveling on the coastal plain of Sonora, where huge agricultural fields were seen, we entered the Sierra Madre. What a dramatic sight as out little train headed into the vast canyon system of these mountains.


At Temoris, the tracks make a huge loop across the river and then enter a tunnel which itself loops 180 degrees underground. The tracks below go uphill from left to right and this photo was shot as we exited that tunnel traveling right to left.


Look at the size of these boulders within the canyon and along the train tracks. Is it any wonder how these deep canyons are carved? Not really - it is the unusually large floods that have rolled boulders of this size and they physically pound the bedrock and chip away at it through time.






Here is a view of the Urique Canyon near Cerocahui. We traveled here on a bus for about an hour to see the view. It was hazy but warm at 7,500 feet.








The town of Urique at the bottom of the canyon. The road continues down but we did not have time to visit.

The roof on the beautiful mission church in Cerocahui.

As many of you have heard, there is quite bit of violence in Mexico these days regarding drug cartels. In August of this year 12 people were gunned down after a dance in the little town of Creel (population 8,000). Here are symbolic caskets pleading with the government to end the violence. Decriminalization of personal marijuana use in our country would act to remove the profit motive in the drug trade and help to end this violence just as well.




A Tarahumara Indian woman shops in a local tienda in the Copper Canyon region.........





..... and then walks home beneath these strange and colorful ash flow tuffs that dominate the landscape in this region. Copper Canyon is cut into these relatively young (25 million years old) volcanic rocks.





Here are a few more scenes of the Tarahumara.






























And the hotel on the rim of the canyon where we stayed for two nights.

"Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau" makes its debut at GSA in Houston!

My new book, "Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau" made its formal debut at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America. This professional conference was held for five days in Houston, Texas. The book is co-authored by one of my former professors, Dr. Ron Blakey. It was such a pleasure to work with Ron and help him get his maps published in book form! The book so far has been very well received. You can order a signed copy at the Grand Canyon Association bookstore. Note however that most of the copies are still on a boat from Hong Kong - we had 500 copies air freighted out for this conference.

I took in many of the professional talks. Some of the interesting topic sessions I attended included: "Return to the Moon: A New Era of Lunar Exploration." One of the talks in this session was given by Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, the 12th man to walk on the moon. Many of the talks in this session tried to explain why we should return to the moon and why the south polar region is a good place to start (there are a few crater rims here that have eternal sunlight to fuel solar powered devices). I saw some great talks about mega-landslides, including some in the Grand Canyon that contain 30 billion cubic meters of material. There were educatrional talks about "Why Study Geology" by Eldridge Moores; "Abandonment of Unaweep Canyon, Colorado in the Last One Million Years" by Karl Karlstrom; and "The History and Influence of Religion on Geology", a topic I am quite interested in. A few young earth creationists were in attendance and the room they alloted to the session was filled to overflowing (I had to lay on the floor in the front of the room to get admitted!).

Helen and I then drove from Houston back to Arizona. We so enjoyed the ride across the Edwards Plateau where limestone road cuts revealed many interesting features. We drove through the town of Pecos and saw the recreated courtroom of Judge Roy Bean. The town has definitely seen better days.

In the yard just outside this recreated Justice of the Peace, there was a gravesite that had the most unusual and uniquely Texas epitaph: Robert Clay Allison - He Never Killed A Man That Did Not Need Killing." I just cracked up laughing for a long time reading this one. Texas is definitely different!

We eventually entered New Mexico ans saw a fantastic natural event - the evening exit of hundreds of thousands of bats from the natural entrance to Carlsbad Caverns. This is a photo of the cavern before the bats exited - they do not allow photos while they are in flight. This was so memorable. We ate Mexican food for every meal from San Antonio to Flagstaff! Heaven indeed.