 EPOD - a service of USRA

The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes
and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and
archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory
captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The
community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and
relevant links.


 Geodiversity atop Utah’s Velvet Ridge

   May 27, 2021

    RoyB_capreef300c_8april21 (002)

    RoyB_capreef290c_8april21 (002)

   Photographer:  Ray Boren

   Summary Author:  Ray Boren

    Velvet Ridge is a stretch of cliffs and other eye-catching
   formations that rise above the  Fremont River between the small
   rural towns of Torrey and Bicknell in south-central Utah, west of
    Capitol Reef National Park. The ridge and the park share many of
   the same characteristics of  geodiversity, which the National Park
   Service defines as a range of geologic resources, encompassing rocks,
   sediments, minerals, fossils, landforms and physical processes.

   The first photograph here, taken on April 8, 2021, showcases colorful
   features of the High Plateaus Section of North America’s vast
    Colorado Plateau, ranging from the  sandstone cliffs in the high
   background, which in this region record 275 million years of Earth’s
   past, as well as evidence of  ancient volcanism. The tinted clay in
   the foreground is  bentonite, well-known in the nearby park. This
   formation is composed of volcanic ash, as well as silt, sand and mud,
   deposited in lakes and swamps during the  Jurassic, 145 to 201
   million years ago.

   And then there’s that perplexing scatter of big  black boulders,
   peppering red and white rock as well as lying atop the cracked clay
   slopes. The area’s boulders came from  basalt and  andesite
   cliffs on nearby  Thousand Lake Mountain (elevation
   11,300 ft/3,444.2 m) and  Boulder Mountain (11,317 ft/3,449 m), both
   prominent high plateaus. Elongated Boulder Mountain is visible to the
   south, across the valley of the Fremont River (also visible) in the
   second photo, also taken from atop the rim of Velvet Ridge on April 8.
   Geologists believe small  Ice Age glaciers cut and quarried the high
   cliffs, and then erosion — via rockslides, landslides, meltwater
   streams and flash floods — over time distributed the boulders hither
   and thither across the complicated landscape.


   Capitol Reef, Utah Coordinates:  38.2, -111.166667


Related EPODs

    Geodiversity atop Utah’s Velvet Ridge  Archive - Roof of the
   World  Volcano Villarrica, the Southern Cross and the Carina Nebula
    Pantanello Beach, Sicily  Terraces Dryland Farming  Davey
   Jackson’s Valley in Winter
    More...

Geography Links

     *  Atlapedia Online
     *  CountryReports
     *  GPS Visualizer
     *  Holt Rinehart Winston World Atlas
     *  Mapping Our World
     *  Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection
     *  Types of Land
     *  World Mapper

-
   Earth Science Picture of the Day is a service of the  Universities
   Space Research Association.

https://epod.usra.edu
 
