Post by Jerry D. Harris 🦕👣 - Takahē

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Jerry D. Harris 🦕👣

@dinogami@sauropods.win

7d

#silentsunday #photography #geology #science #utah

A small section of the so-called "Little Grand Canyon" (Canyon of the San Rafael River) in central Utah. Various layers of varicolored sedimentary rock are exposed here below a blue sky. At the bottom, at the level of the river (just right of center) is the Upper Triassic (~215 million year old) Chinle Formation, forming red and greenish, lightly shrub-covered slopes. Above that is the thick, mostly cliff-forming, buff- and reddish-colored, Upper Triassic–Lower Jurassic (~200 million year old) Wingate Sandstone. Atop that is another slope-forming, shrub-covered unit, the Lower Jurassic (~195 million year old) Kayenta Formation. At the top, the tall, buff–yellow colored cliffs, plus the buttes in the distance and the ledge in the lower foreground of the photo (from which the photo was taken), is the Lower Jurassic (~185 million year old) Navajo Sandstone. These layers record fluctuating climates and environments across the Triassic–Jurassic boundary: the Chinle and Kayenta formations were deposited in relatively lush, forested environments with abundant streams. The Wingate and Navajo sandstones were, in contrast, deposited in much more arid (desert) sand-dune environments; the Navajo Sandstone is the remnants of the largest erg (sand-dune "sea") known any time in Earth history, covering most of what is today the western United States.

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