Subj : ES Picture of the Day 28  2022
To   : All
From : Dan Richter
Date : Thu Jul 28 2022 12:01:18

 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.


 Idaho’s Granitic City of Rocks

   July 28, 2022

    RayB_CityofRocks1270c_22june22 (003)

    RayB_CityofRocks1250c_22june22 (003)

   It isn’t difficult to understand the wonder experienced by westbound
   pioneers and  Gold Rush Forty-Niners whose wagon trains rattled
   through southern Idaho’s  Albion Mountains while crossing North
   America via the 19th century’s California Trail. The same granite
   monoliths, spires, domes and cliffs — which to some emigrants resembled
   urban skylines back East — are encountered at today’s  City of Rocks
   National Reserve, a unit of the U.S. National Park Service and the
    Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation that was established in
   1988. The time-sculpted landscape’s panoramic viewpoints include Window
   Arch, shown here in a photograph taken on June 22, 2022.


   City of Rocks, and nearby  Castle Rock State Park, expose the
    Almo Pluton and the  Green Creek Complex. Igneous rock intruded
   into even more ancient rock, up to 2.5 billion years old, and cooled
   deep in the Earth. Raised by  Basin and Range physiographic dynamics
   over millions of years, the weathered and often-rounded outcrops might
   now bring to mind sculpted turtles, armadillos, elephants and trolls as
   much as cityscapes. In a second image, taken on the same date, summer
   wildflowers and sage fill a high plain below sawtooth pillars dozens of
   stories high. The gritty, cracked cliffs and scarps also attract rock
   climbers, who test their ropes and technical skills on more than 700
   acknowledged routes. Note the climber atop the pinnacle in the photo at
   bottom.


   The picturesque setting remains sacred to Native American peoples,
   including  Shoshone and  Paiute tribes, some of whom consider
   City of Rocks to be their place of origin, the Park Service notes. The
   historic  California Trail, followed by over 200,000 emigrants
   between the 1840s and 1880s, diverges south and west from the nearby
    Oregon Trail, at “the  Parting of the Ways” at the confluence of
   the  Snake and  Raft rivers, and slices through City of Rocks
   toward northwestern Utah and Nevada’s  Humboldt River. Some pioneers
   left names, dates and other inscriptions in axle grease on formations,
   such as Camp Rock and Register Rock. Freight and stagecoach routes
   subsequently used the corridor, linking the transcontinental railroad,
   after its 1869 completion in northern Utah, to Boise, Idaho. Today
   cattle ranches and alfalfa fields cover vast stretches, as in Almo and
   the Raft River Valley to the east, while a few in-holdings and
   homesteads remain within the City of Rocks reserve itself.


    RayB_CityofRocks1276ac_22june22 (003)


   City of Rocks National Reserve Idaho Coordinates: 42.0727, -113.7038


Related EPODs

    Idaho’s Granitic City of Rocks  Dungeness Spit Beach  Venus
   in Daylight  Icons of Arizona  Path of the Sun from Two Different
   Latitudes  Reflections on the Southern Wasatch Mountains
    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
 
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