{"id":6753,"date":"2011-10-15T21:27:13","date_gmt":"2011-10-16T02:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/?p=6753"},"modified":"2011-10-15T21:27:13","modified_gmt":"2011-10-16T02:27:13","slug":"scenic-saturday-the-american-west-from-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/2011\/10\/scenic-saturday-the-american-west-from-above\/","title":{"rendered":"Scenic Saturday: the American West from above"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, geoblogger Michael Klaas<\/a> pointed me in the direction of a lovely set of paintings<\/a> of landscapes viewed from the windows of airliners as they traversed America. These pictures reminded me of some photos that I took at the end of last year on a flight from Chicago to Phoenix:<\/p>\n

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Photo: Chris Rowan, 2010. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo: Chris Rowan, 2010. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Photo: Chris Rowan, 2010. Click to enlarge.<\/p><\/div>\n

As well as being quite handsome to look at, there’s a tantalising glimpse of some interesting geology in the landscape I was flying over. The steep cliff faces indicate layers of hard rock – probably sandstone or limestone. The fact that there is a series of them suggests that there are some softer, more easily eroded layers – a mudstone, perhaps? – between them. In the second picture, the formations are dipping into the earth, away from the direction I am flying in; so in a sense, my flight is taking me back in time, a story of past Earths and changing environments rewound below me as I travel onwards. The final picture is particularly tantalising, though: it shows a double ridge, which looks to me like two closely-spaced sandstone or limestone beds tipped almost up on their ends, so that they are plunging almost vertically into the Earth. That suggests folding. And you know how I like<\/a> folding<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The problem is that I’m not sure exactly where I was in the western US when I took these photos. I was definitely closer to Phoenix than Chicago, but I’m not sure if I was snapping Arizona, Colorado or Utah. Perhaps one of my readers can help? Consider it a challenge: a Where On (Not Google) Earth, if you will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lets play Where On (Not Google) Earth! Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,25,26,197],"tags":[496],"class_list":["post-6753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopuzzling","category-outcrops","category-photos","category-structures","tag-aerial-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6753"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6760,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753\/revisions\/6760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/all-geo.org\/highlyallochthonous\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}