Just got back from majestic Sedona, Arizona, where my family and I spent Thanksgiving. Sedona is a charming and crazy amalgam of spectacular geology, amazing autumn foliage, exciting restaurants, and an eclectic mix of new age shops and centers. Believers of aura photos, energy vortices, and natural healing flock from all over the country to the countless psychic and supernatural shops in this beautiful town.
Sedona may be infamous for its fortunetellers but deservedly famous for its amazing rock formations, which provided the backdrop for many Western movies, with stars from John Wayne to Clark Gable filming there. At the time of Pangea, all continents on Earth joined together: one could have walked from the Northern American plate to the Australian, African, or even to the Antarctic plates. Sedona and the soft rocks of the Supai Formation red , below the young Coconino sandstone.
Daniel Apai. Today, the rock formations cut across about 2, feet of Permian deposits: they consist of beautifully exposed wind-deposited eolian and coastal deposits. It is not present in the Sedona region.
This layer consists of Sandstone, siltstone and mudstone deposited in what were once tidal flat areas. It is about 20 million years old, and up to feet thick. It is not present in Sedona. This strata is a hard, erosion resistant limestone that is cream or grayish white in color, formed to million years ago from the remains of aquatic sponges.
This is the highest layer present with any regularity in the Sedona area, and can be up to feet thick, although sometimes even this is completely worn away. It is the same layer as found at the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and contains fossils of brachiopods, mollusks, and fish. The Toroweap is mixture of rock varieties, including sandstone, limestone, gypsum, mudstone and dolmite.
The limestone layers represent times when the sea was relatively deep, while the sandstone and mudstone represent times when the region was either above sea level or covered with shallow water. In some places though not near Sedona the Toroweap contains salt and gypsum deposits, which are formed by the evaporation of salt water. Fossils in the Toroweap are similar to, though somewhat less abundant than, those found in the Kaibab, and include shellfish, brachiopods, crinoids, snails, scaphopods and clams.
The Toroweap is similar in color to the Kaibab limestone above it, though it is usually a little darker yellow to gray. It tends to erode into an angled slope, in contrast to both the Kaibab above and Coconino below , which frequently form near-vertical cliffs. This slope provides a foothold for pines and manzanita, and the layer can sometimes be identified from a distance by the "green line" that runs horizontally along the sides of some the mesas see the photos above.
The Coconino is a to foot thick layer of cream or golden-colored sanstone, formed after the final retreat of the Pedregosa Sea million years ago. The layer consists of cross-bedded, wind-blown sandstone - essentially petrified sand dunes, some up to fifty feet in length - indicating that this layer formed on dry land.
All of this can be found within a short drive. Even if there is an appearance of traffic, you can get just about anywhere in Sedona , within minutes. For example, my home at the very back of Soldiers Pass is only minutes to Whole Foods, and my doctor as well as other professional services. My dentist is 5-minutes to the west. All the food stores and pharmacies are 5-minutes or less from each other. Uptown is only 5 to 7 minutes to the east from Whole Foods!
Traveling short distances for your shopping, professional and medical needs does spoil me. If it takes me an extra couple of minutes to get somewhere because of traffic, my husband reminds me of how much traffic we came from in the Metropolitan Los Angeles area. One of the main reasons Rick got Red Rocks Fever was the night sky. You could actually see the Milky Way at night along with shooting stars. Sedona reminded him of being a kid again when there was little light pollution and you could see stars.
Once there was the suburban sprawl, light pollution entered the picture. Sedona has taken great strides to continue to suppress light pollution and preserve the dark sky. There is an actual city ordinance that covers what residents and the business community can do with lighting. In , Sedona was designated as the eighth International Dark Sky community.
Flagstaff Arizona was the very first city to be designated IDA back in Each area that is designated must meet stringent criteria to carry the IDA designation. A List of Extrusive Igneous Rocks.
What Sediments Make a Good Aquifer? The Different Types of Landforms. Landforms Near Chicago. How Gorges Are Formed. Fossil Hunting in Tennessee.
0コメント