Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Geo-challenge: range? rock? process?

Where is this immense gallery of scratched and polished carvings? Who was the sculptor? What was the clay?

Ideas, answers? Please add a Comment below. A post will follow, after I’ve recovered from Post Vacation Trauma.  ANSWERS HERE

13 comments:

  1. From Rowena: Could glaciers make those scratches and smooth the rock?

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  2. That's a beauty. I'm with Rowena on the explanation, but I have no idea about the locality. Might be interested in GigaPanning it in a week or two on my way back to California, though.

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  3. That's a beauty. I'm with Rowena on the explanation, but I have no idea about the locality. Might be interested in GigaPanning it in a week or two on my way back to California, though.

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  4. OK, so my first impression was the Sierra Nevada range in California. Then I cheated and googled several parameters and found this: http://www.indiana.edu/~sierra/papers/2003/Hong.html. Correct?

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    1. Neat article, Beth--thanks. I was really curious about Figure 3, but couldn't track it down (dead link). Looks like sedimentary bedding and preserved jointing as in the Uinta rocks.

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  5. Yep, to us Hoosiers it's all about the glaciers! LOL!

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  6. I'll go out on a limb and guess eastern Nevada. Looks more like glacial striations than low-angle fault surface.

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  7. I'll go out on a limb and guess eastern Nevada. Looks more like glacial striations than low-angle fault surface.

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  8. Yes indeed--glacial polish and striations. I thought the low-angle surface and layered mountain in the background might reveal range & rock--high Uinta Mountains of northeast Utah & quartzite (barely--metasedimentary and nearly horizontal). Thanks for the comments!

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  9. I was thinking it looked like the Snake Range, probably the same type of rock.

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  10. To me the lines and polished surface are clearly of glacial origin.

    As to the rock, I suppose it's a granitic rock of some kind, although from the picture with your foot in it it appears almost grainy like sandstone.

    Assuming the rock is granitic and not sandstone, I'd have to say the eastern Sierra Nevada, although that is just a guess.

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    1. Ian -- yes, glacial. It's in the Uinta Mts (northeast UT) and you're right about the graininess. The rock is considered quartzite but still shows features of its sandstone heritage. There are shale and sandstone beds in the sequence also. Thanks for commenting!

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  11. Follow-up post here: http://plantsandrocks.blogspot.com/2016/10/glacial-beauty-in-high-uintas.html

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