guidedsailor:

These roots were made for walking…

Bryce Canyon National Park

Tre Cime di Lavaredo

The 3 peaks of Lavaredo (also called Dre Zinnen/3 chimneys), seen here in the mists, are some of the most famous peaks in the Alps. They are located in Northwest Italy, in the province of South Tyrol. The highest of them, Cima Grande (big peak) in the center reaches 2999 meters above sea level.

As they’re some of the key peaks of the Dolomites, it is no surprise that the rocks making up these towers are in fact dolomite, a carbonate mineral. 

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diogofalmeida:

Fujicolor Print Industrial 100

Isle of Skye, Scotland

August, 2018

carmen-art:

Roussanou Monastery, Meteora 2019

The Top Step

Last week, we covered the geology of the Grand Staircase in Utah – a large sequence of nearly undisturbed sedimentary rocks that starts at the Great Unconformity in the Grand Canyon and marches across Arizona and Utah, eventually reaching Paleocene-Eocene aged rocks that are as young as 40 million years old. This sequence creates a “Staircase” pattern as the more easily eroded units create large flat areas and they are then separated from more resistant units that create steps upwards.

This image captured out a plane window captures the uppermost step in the Grand Staircase and a particularly famous National Park. 

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Penitentes

Rows of sparkling snow pinnacles range beside a high Andean pass between Chile and Argentina.

Silent and eerie, the Agua Negra Pass high in the remote Andes links La Serena in Chile with San Juan Province in Argentina. At an altitude of 15,633ft (4765m) it is one of the world’s highest motoring passes—a tough 12-hour drive with a high risk of plunging into a ravine or of being swept away by a landslide.

The sky is dark in the thin air, and the shadowy ranks of the Penitentes—pinnacles of frozen snow 6-20ft (1.8-6m) tall—lining the steep slopes like white hooded figures, add to the spine-chilling atmosphere.

In 1835, the British naturalist Charles Darwin thought that the pinnacles were formed by wind action. More recent studies show that these ice pinnacles form when ice is below the freezing temperature of water, but being bombarded with sunlight and undergoing sublimation. Tiny depressions begin forming as the ice sublimates, and sunlight is focused into these depressions, causing the ice to sublimate more rapidly at those spots. The end result is a field of spiky ice, that this photographer described as “hell to cross”.

~JM

Image Credit: https://flic.kr/p/5W1xUZ

More Info:
Penitentes: http://bit.ly/1LUcEXv
Video-Penitentes: http://bit.ly/1Fleb4K
Betterton, M. D. (2000). Formation of structure in snowfields: Penitentes, suncups, and dirt cones. http://bit.ly/1KEd5b1
Sublimation: http://on.doi.gov/1HUN06X
Luciano Roque Catalano. Book. “Snow Penitents” http://bit.ly/1FTnRr0

The Spire of Pelée

In 1902, Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique unleashed one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century. After a period of a few weeks activity, on May 8 it exploded, producing a pyroclastic flow nicknamed a nuée ardente, which translates to “glowing cloud”.

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