Comments on: Ephemeral snow and ancient rock

By: Mitraria

Mitraria — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 16:49:39 +0000

My husband likes the generic Cheerios. He calls them “Cheerioids”.

By: RAF

RAF — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:19:59 +0000

I also enjoy a breakfast of “generic” cocoa krispies most every morning. Is that weird or what??

By: Jeffersonian

Jeffersonian — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:37:00 +0000

@41
One is called “Spaceship”…

type cross-section of flood plain and foothill here:
bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/natural/geology/crosssec.html

Another extraordinary thing is that due to sparse ground-cover and river-cutting, many of the contact zones are easily visible underfoot. Millions of years touch each other in color.

By: ASFalcon13

ASFalcon13 — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:05:18 +0000

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Once upon a time I would have thought this was a pretty photo. Now that I’m a private pilot, all I see is a big CFIT hazard and structural icing. There’s only so much beauty you can derive from a photo when you realize that everything in it is trying to kill you. In other words, due to the effects of what you see in this photo, I get to cancel yet another flight. Thanks, Colorado!

It’s all about point of view, I guess.

By: sophia8

sophia8 — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:15:54 +0000

I’m in Scotland, and just a few nights ago we had a TV show about the geology of Scotland. The country’s been shaped by billions of years of vulcanism and continental movements and there are amazing rock formations everywhere.
Anyway, it inspired me to look into my local geology. It seems that the hill I can see from my window, in fact the hill this house is built on, is composed of ‘greywacke sandstone’ – sedimentary rock that’s close to half a billion years old. And this house that I’m sitting in is built from those same rocks……
I’m a dancing, buzzing mayfly compared to them.

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:33:33 +0000

@34. ccpetersen Says:

But, I would be remiss if I didn’t send you MY view of this snowy world, from 30 or so miles west of you and a few thousand feet higher up. Click on my name to see MY world.

I tried that & didn’t get anything – just this :

This content is currently unavailable.The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may have expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.

message for your facebook page.

@30. Jeffersonian :

Phil, I recommend you learn the names of the 5 numbered and several more of the Flatiron features (they’re all named). Humans are nomenclature-based and this gives you a more intimate relationship with your skyline. The three in the center of this photo are #3, #2, and #1.

*Those* are their names!? Um, I would’ve expected something more imaginative & better than that!

By: Jeff J

Jeff J — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 07:38:27 +0000

Like Mark T (comment 24) I grew up in Louisville Ky, not really experiencing mountains until I took a trip out to Boulder a few summers ago with some friends to hike and enjoy the mountain air! We went up to the royal arch and and poked around in the foothills quite a bit. We were lucky enough to be in Boulder for the Perseids, and even found a nice dark spot up in the hills one warm evening! I fell in love with the flat irons the moment I laid my eyes on them, and standing on top of them after the arduous hike up was a great experience!

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 02:08:05 +0000

They’ve aged well – they don’t look a day over 6,000. (C’mon – somebody had to say it!)

By: podrock

podrock — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:53:03 +0000

A decent cross-section of the Boulder area:

http://bcn.boulder.co.us/basin/natural/geology/crosssec.html

By: Jesse

Jesse — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:14:03 +0000

I love gazing at the Flatirons and contemplating “deep time” and the immense geologic forces at work. Boulder is a unique place where many different ages of rock are dramatically exposed. Within a couple of miles, you can hike through a sequence of rocks back in time from the Quaternary to the Precambrian (with a big ~1.4 billion-year gap between the base of the Fountain Formation and the granitic basement rock making up the Front Range west of town).

I highly recommend the book “The Geology of Boulder County” by Raymond Bridge. I just finished reading it, and it’s quite understandable to a non-geologist. It includes a bunch of hikes/field trips in the area.

By: Chris Winter

Chris Winter — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 00:12:30 +0000

I was going to throw in, for Rachael, a link to “Orogeny” by Evoken. But after giving it a listen, I decided it was not that great.

In any case, here’s to Boulder! Long may its mountains rise. My father was there at a summer institute for the Biological Science Curriculum study, back in 1966 or thereabouts. We drove out to meet him after. To see the Rockies rising ahead as we left Nebraska was a revelation. Ever since, Colorado has been my favorite state.

By: podrock

podrock — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:36:26 +0000

To be specific, the majority of the the “fins” or tall rocks in the Garden of the Gods are Lyons Formation, a nearly pure quartz sandstone (sand dunes and large scale cross-bedding) with an inner bed of arkosic conglomerate. The Fountain Formation forms the west side of GOGs, Balanced Rock being the best example of Fountain Formation in the park. Same with Roxbourgh Park, most of that is Lyons Sandstone. Type location is Lyons, Colorado, where the rock is quarried for landscaping flagstone.

By: ccpetersen

ccpetersen — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:48:58 +0000

Phil, I grew up with that view from a farm a few miles west of where you now sit. Your house sits (I think) on property that my relatives used to own. We had picnics out there and would gaze at the Flatirons on lazy summer afternoons. Lots of good family memories, college memories, and GRAD school memories tied up in that view.

But, I would be remiss if I didn’t send you MY view of this snowy world, from 30 or so miles west of you and a few thousand feet higher up.

Click on my name to see MY world.

Other than that, yeah, I get up in the morning, get my coffee, check my email, and ponder at the view — seeing the backbone of the mountains a few miles west of me. This is a great state if you’re into geology, that’s for sure!

Thanks!

By: Kath

Kath — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:45:25 +0000

I grew up in Boulder, with the Flatirons shaping my skyline. I’m in New England now, but I miss that view! Thank you so much for sharing it so this Colorado expat could enjoy.

By: Jeffersonian

Jeffersonian — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:43:06 +0000

add:
some people who don’t live near mountains may enjoy a bit of scale:
The 3rd Flatiron is over 1000′ tall and the First is 850′ tall, so that gives you an idea how far away Phil needed to be to take the photo. The mountain in the rear is Green Mountain and rises nearly 3000′ above town to 8144′ (though because the Front Range has several peaks above 14,000′, Green Mtn barely registers as a foothill).

(Yes, I loves me the Flats).

By: Jeffersonian

Jeffersonian — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:34:20 +0000

@19. just for pedantics; Though the glaciers in the Tetons have shrunk freaking dramatically (even compared to others in the central Rockies), the snow you see from the valley floor is is seasonal and disappears in a dry autumn. It peaks in late May/early June on the highest peaks of the range.

By: Jeffersonian

Jeffersonian — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 21:23:21 +0000

I’ve climbed 85 routes on several dozen of these bad boys. In doing so, you gain a large understanding of Fountain Formation because you’re standing on it, grabbing it all day, and walking past all the layers when you’re hiking down past the sides after rapping off. You learn about the pre-Cretaceous Sea that once covered this region (when the continent was in a different place), laying down eons of sediment and partnering alluvials. You learn that the different layers (which can be millions of years age difference) are not only different colors, but climb different underfoot. Some of the nearly 100 formations are closed certain times of year due to an increase in raptor nesting.

Highly recommended climbing including the east face of 3rd Flatiron (the one with the giant letters) which has been called the best beginner’s climb in the universe (advanced climbers can run up it unroped without stopping – even without hands). The interlaced Feldspar has a lot to do with the aesthetic climbability. Personal faves are the ones behind NCAR.

Phil, I recommend you learn the names of the 5 numbered and several more of the Flatiron features (they’re all named). Humans are nomenclature-based and this gives you a more intimate relationship with your skyline. The three in the center of this photo are #3, #2, and #1.

@rachael. The Flatirons are not the only overturned-strata Fountain Formation: Red Rocks Amphitheater, Roxborough Park and the dramatic Garden of the Gods. None of which are as solid as Flatirons (which are more solid than Colorado granitics).

By: alfaniner

alfaniner — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:52:48 +0000

“With the Sun shining so brightly, that snow in the picture hardly lasted until the afternoon.”

Just because the Sun is bright, doesn’t necessarily mean the snow will melt. All I have to do is look outside. Beautiful bright sunny day, -10 degrees. The snow will stay for a while. I’m only so aware because the bright day is my trade-off for the cold.

By: Leon

Leon — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:26:48 +0000

“Yeahup. I’m braggin’. Click to upliftenate.”

That’s not very nice, Phil. Here I am stuck in California with the same drab, sunny skies and dry ground every day. I haven’t even been able to use my jacket much this winter. Curse you and your snowscapes!

By: Linda

Linda — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:48:09 +0000

I’m actually doing a literature review paper for my Advanced Sedimentology class on the Pennsylvanian – Permian geologic history of the Denver Basin. Maybe I’ll pass it along when I’m done!

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:11:59 +0000

The Fountain Formation is also responsible for a couple of other famous sites – Red Rocks and the Garden of the Gods. To put it in similar terms to Phil’s, without all those millions upon millions of years of geological activity, we would never have had U2′s Live Under a Blood Red Sky.

By: BJN

BJN — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:11:49 +0000

You left out that the rock is a conglomerate sandstone or “arkose”. Any sedimentary formation is comprised of rocks older than the formation itself, but in a real sense all rocks are composed of older material since this tectonically active planet is a rock recycling machine.

By: Mark T

Mark T — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 18:04:26 +0000

I lived in Laramie for a few years, and would occasionally drive down to Denver. Having grown up in non-mountainous Louisville, Kentucky, it was startling and fascinating to not just see mountains and rock formations, but to actually be able to see the structure of the geography in the rock formations in the area: to be able to actually look at enormous, shifted slabs of earth and see plainly the manner in which they had moved was a novel, wonderful thing. I miss your part of the country, but I also missed Kentucky while I was there…

By: Ken B

Ken B — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:59:22 +0000

BTW, if you ever get bored of the views, I’ll be happy to trade houses with you, no charge.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 17:57:03 +0000

Your best blog post yet, Phil. The best things in life are these brief moments where nature just takes the breath away and i’ve lived almost sixty years and that is my conclusion on what is good in life. I almost gag when I see all the technology ads because human creations are a joke compared to “god’s” creation.

last two months almost every morning I wake up and venus is shining through my window into my eyes and here in the sunshine state it’s pretty much clear sky every morning. The realization of venus bowing to it’s giant SUN, golly, the earth bows to the same object.