Once upon a time...long long ago.
The earth was full of lots of volcanic activity in the southwest of the land that became the United States of America (which has only existed for a blink of an eye).
If you've never heard of Shiprock, New Mexico, it's a marvel of geology. It's near the Grand Canyon, which I'm sure almost everyone has heard of.
Arizona Geological Survey at the University of Arizona on Facebook posted this last week.
Shiprock! High resolution hillshade image of the Shiprock volcanic complex and a topographic profile of the vent structure. Data courtesy of National Map 3D program (1-m resolution). Topo profile from Google Earth.
From a short note by the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. “The Ship Rock landform, located in northwestern New Mexico, is the remnant of an explosive volcanic eruption that occurred around 30 million years ago. The main part of the landform is 600 meters high, and 500 meters in diameter. Ship Rock, known as Tse Bitai, or "the winged rock" in Navajo, is a volcanic neck, or the central feeder pipe of larger volcanic landform which has since eroded away. The neck is composed of fractured volcanic rock, or breccia, crosscut by many thin veins of lava. Ship Rock is composed of an unusual, highly potassic magma composition called a "minette", thought to form by very small degrees of melting of the earth's mantle. Ship Rock was probably 750 to 1000 meters below the land surface at the time it was formed, and has since gained its prominent form due to erosion of surrounding rocks.
Another striking feature of Ship Rock are the dikes, or wall-like sheets of lava that radiate away from the central neck. At least two of these dikes are visible in this image. A total of six dikes have been recognized. These dikes would have been intruded at some depth below the earth's surface at the time that the Ship Rock eruption was occurring. Like the neck, the dikes have since been exposed due to differential weathering through time of the hard lava of the dikes, and the more easily eroded sandstone and shale of the country rocks.
For more information https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/tour/landmarks/shiprock/home.html
Sharing with Sepia Saturday...Fire is this week's suggested meme.
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"Shiprock" sure looks like New Mexico's marvel of geology.
ReplyDeleteIt isn't a tourist destination, though.
DeleteAll I know about Shiprock I learned from those detective stories set in the region, by Tony Hillerman.
ReplyDeleteI've read all of Hillerman's books, as well as his daughters. It made the southwest come alive for me.
DeleteHello
ReplyDeleteWow, I have never seen Shiprock, looks amazing. Take care, have a wonderful weekend.
It's kind of out of the way, in the middle of desert country on the reservation. Just something you drive by on your way somewhere else.
DeleteIt would be fascinating to visit this marvel of geological history.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what you could see or do. It's a sacred Navajo site, I believe.
DeleteBack in the 70s, we had an exercise in geography involving the Shiprock topographic map. Or maybe it was a aerial photo. I can't remember for sure. I think that I only used it once or twice, whatever the case.
ReplyDeleteOh that's interesting...it's a strange piece of rock! No wonder it's a sacred site for Navajos.
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