Seven Unusual Landforms from the Giant Blue Eye of the Sahara to the Carnallite Salt Mines of Russia

      Seven unusual landforms are the focus of this somewhat trippy and anthropomorphic article about the "giant muscular space wizard that keeps our planet spinning and loses its balance, sending those mountains and rivers and oceans crashing together in unexpected ways." Here is the Giant Blue Eye of the Sahara in Mauritania, western Africa.

       Check out the article linked above to discover more about these odd landforms. Here are the dry, dry, dry carnallite salt mines in Russia, representing Asia:

       Number three on the Landforms List is The "Iceman's Pompadour," Antarctica:

  
      The Marble Caves of Chile are South America's contributions to the weird landform list:

      Number five on the list is Izvorul Bigar, the "Weeping Waterfall" of Romania, Europe. It is only 26 feet tall and the source of the dripping water is unknown.

      Number six, representing Australia/New Zealand is Split Apple Rock or "Toko Ngawha:"

      And last on the list is the second European location at "The Giant's Causeway" in Ireland:

      Nothing from North America made their list. How about Bryce Canyon hoodoos in Utah?

Or the Vermillion Cliffs of Arizona?

      We've discussed at least one of these landforms here at Partial Ellipsis of the Sun. Which one(s)?

What would make your list?
Steph

"Like New" Coprolite Fossils From East Central Utah

     You can't make this stuff up!

      I ordered several Jurassic age coprolite (fossilized dinosaur scat) from east central Utah from a rock shop. 

       The order form lists the condition of this "Christmas Poop -- Better than Coal" as "Like New." These are "Authentic Fossils" and they are "Like New."      

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

      The Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry of east central Utah has produced some of the most well-preserved and complete sets of carnivore dinosaur skeletons (and dinosaur poop!) in the Jurassic formations of North America. 

     Over 15,000 dinosaur bones have been discovered so far from this quarry, a natural predator trap (similar to the La Brea Tar Pits). Many of the rearticulated dinosaur skeletons reside in over 65 museums worldwide. 

      The quarried mudstone is part of the distinctive red Morrison Formation (of Colorado's Red Rocks Amphitheater fame).

      Interstate-70 divides the area into the north and south halves of the San Rafael Swell, where the quarry is located. (I-70 starts/ends west of the quarry).

      The atypical predator/prey ratio (3:1) represented at the quarry may be explained by the pack hunting tendencies of the most prevalent skeletons, the Allosaurus.  

       The high percentage of smaller individual allosaurs suggests that younger dinosaurs worked together to capture and kill prey. The predators may have followed their prey into the mud and subsequently became mired in the predator trap themselves. (Insert "drain the swamp" joke here).

Look! Fossils "like new!"
Steph

Boudinage, Cactolith, Crozzle, and Slickensides: Say that Three Times Fast and with a Lith

       Enjoy this smorgasbord of fun, fun-to-say, and funny geologic terms. Be sure to dust off your best French accent for bou-di-najjj, or sausage-shaped features formed by extension in rocks.

        Boudinage is the geological term for structures formed by the aforementioned extension, where a rigid tabular body is stretched and deformed amidst less competent surroundings. The competent bed begins to break up, forming sausage-shaped boudins. Watch this 2-minute video to see boudinage forming in an ice cream sandwich.

         A cactolith is "a quasi-horizontal chonolith composed of anastomosing ductoliths, whose distal ends curl like a harpolith, thin out like a sphenolith, or bulge discordantly like an akmolith or ethmolith." This quite tongue-in-cheek definition was described by Charles B Hunt in 1953 in the Henry Mountains in Utah to describe an intrusive feature resembling a cactus. It's a long lith. . .

      Crozzle is partially burned coal. {The by-product of burned coal is called clinker.} Some underground coal seams have been burning for centuries.

     One of my favorite geologic terms is slickensides which are polished, striated rock surfaces caused by one rock mass sliding over or past another. The word describes well the result of slick features moving past each other in fault zones:

      One can almost hear the grinding and sliding of rocks past each other. . .

      It's one of the most tactile surfaces in geology:

       Have you touched slickensides? Seen a cactolith? Do you have a favorite geologic term?  Or do you have a favorite term from your profession?


What's on your lith? ;-)
Steph

Oui, and speaking of French words and mirror planes, may 2016 be filled with much "Joie!"

Cryptobiotic Soil Crusts: Take Nothing but Photos and Don't Leave Any Footprints!

     The cryptobiotic soil crusts of Arches National Park, Utah, are the inspiration for this week's post. 

    Cryptobiotic soil crusts are communities of living organisms on the soil surface in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. They are found worldwide.

        Cryptobiotic soil crusts perform important ecological roles including carbon fixation, nitrogen fixation, soil stabilization, altering soil albedo and affecting germination and nutrient levels in vascular plants. 

        The "crypto" part of the name refers to the hidden nature of the crusts. The crusts form very slowly and can look like surrounding soil in the first few decades. A footprint on these soils can cause damage that may take 250 years to recover in low rainfall areas like Arches' Fiery Furnace.

     A Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image of this crust reveals a complex array of cyanobacteria (the bacteria formerly known as blue-green algae), lichen (see our 100th post on litmus and lichen), and mosses.

     This one-minute video shows the effect water has on part of the mosses in the cryptobiotic soil crust.

     Yes, a very delicate organism surrounds much of Delicate Arch in Arches N.P. and all over Utah. Treading lightly on marked trails will preserve these important, complex cryptobiotic soil crusts.

      Have you encountered cryptobiotic soil crust at Arches or elsewhere? May you have photos but no footprints to share. . .

      I am also curious about whether reddish-orange landscapes are more appealing to each of you than the green and blue ones. I grew up in the greener landscapes of New England (NE!) but I have learned to love the red-oranges after living in the west for more than half my life. The blue-greens are beautiful, too, of course.

Crustily and cryptically,
Steph

Arches: Delicate Arch and La Sal Mountains

Bryce: Peakaboo Trail

Zion: Near Angel's Landing Trail

The Answer, My Friends, is Blowing in the Wind

     This week's PEOTS will be focused on the visual imagery of wind turbines. As to wind energy: the answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind at sunrise headed west where the giant limbs' movement appeared almost as a mirage:

          And headed east in the afternoon a few days later.  What amazes me the most is how these giant features are whisper quiet.

         No tilting at windmills here in Spanish Fork, Utah:

          Large arms spreading out, moving air and harnessing energy:
   

          Dedicating this week's PEOTS to my dear (not deer) son, traveling companion extraordinaire. The following wind turbine photos are from the National Energy Research Labs:

        The movement is reminiscent of a tumbling gymnast, twirling over and over.

           We might revisit wind energy next week.  It's been an exhausting week here. . .So I am hoping the answer, my friends, is indeed blowing in the wind.

       Winding up this week,
       Steph

Playa-ble: An Unexpected Trip to Black Rock Desert and Burning Man

          An unexpected trip to the ending of the Burning Man festival, held on a gigantic gray/white playa called Black Rock Playa near Reno, Nevada

 resulted in a late Partial Ellipsis Of The Sun... but also in these wonderful images of the playa and the journey there. [Take the Fernley exit off I-80 in far northwestern Nevada and head north on a one-lane-each-way road.]

          The playa varies in elevation only .02 inches across the up to 12-mile wide, 40-mile long, desert feature:

     Being "on playa" is quite an experience. . .Keep your white/limestone-colored dogs close at all times out on the evaporative gypsum and selenite salts:

      Salt Lake and environs:

View from the Salt Palace:

      People at Burning Man are quite flexible; one might even say they are playa-ble.

    These words from John Mcphee's Basin and Range say it all:

     "This Nevada terrain is not corrugated, like the folded Appalachians, like a tubal air mattress, like a rippled potato chip.

       This is not--in that compressive manner--a ridge and valley situation.

        Each range here is like a WARSHIP standing on its own, and the Great Basin is an ocean of loose sediment with these mountain ranges standing in it as if they were members of a fleet without precedent, assembled at Guam to assault Guam. . .

     Animals tend to be content with their home ranges and not to venture out across the big dry valleys.The fauna in the high ranges are quite distinct from one another. Animals are isolated like Darwin's finches in the Galapagoes.

     THESE RANGES ARE TRULY ISLANDS."

     Ahh, such extensive, pulling apart, stretching, expansive writing, Mr. McPhee! 

       Those last words in capital letters resonated with me while at Burning Man. We were at this old, old beach, in a now-waterless expanse of alkaline salts, trying to find a way to "swim" to shore and out of isolation. . .

     Until next week and the fossil limestone "forests" near Kunming City, China, and in Denver, Colorado.

     Play-a-long, would you please?

     Here are three more images from the journey:

        Best night's sleep on this little cot on the playa!

Steph

Word Woman

Some of the art at Burning Man:

     

     And my art installation upon returning to Colorado: