GC8VBW2 Painting the Desert
Type: Earth | Size: Other | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: firennice @ | Hide Date: 06/20/2020 | Status: Available
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N38° 28.384 W108° 52.815 | Last updated: 06/19/2022 | Fav points: 0

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Logging tasks

1. Send me a message with the cache name, and the names you will be logging for.  If the other do not log within a week or so they will need to send their own answer (I cant keep track of people logging months/years apart)
2. Does the desert varnish appear in streaks here? or lage even sheets covering the surface.
3. is the color even or vary
4. looking to the opposing sides of the river, compare the varnish, varnish amounts, colors on the two sides.
5. Picture... post a photo of you, your gps, or even your foot at this location, try to shoot up or down the canyon to not give away the answer.

The desert.  I grew up in hills and mountains like this, and I often forget how beutiful that it is.

If you look at the hills on each side of you the sandstone rock appears to be stained, or painted by flows of something running down the surface.  It can also form on the sides where water never really would get to the stone in rain or snowfall.   Someotimes minerals within the surface will form the varnish, and other times windborn sands/clay particles will be depostied on those surfaces.

for decades the prevailing theory is that the varinish is formed by micoorganisms that take those minerals out of the environment and they get cemented onto the rock surface.  Causing the rust to form (black rust for the mineral manganese) and running down the surfaces or sticking on the surfaces. 

Yet a newer theory by Randall Perry of Imperial College London is breaking that idea, that it is silica that deposits on the rocks entobming the microorganisms and the varnish like amber.  " The team also discovered that, just like amber that entombs ancient insects, desert varnish tends to trap fingerprints of biology, such as amino acids, DNA fragments, and even microorganisms from past eras that lived on the rocks or simply became stuck to them"

The colors of desert varnish can be reds from irons to black from manganese, then every color shade in between. 

 

References

 

 

Congrats to Grand Junction Dad on being the First to send his answers in.  

Additional Waypoints

P08VBW2 - parking
N 38° 28.384 W 108° 52.815

07/01/2020 By Grand Junction Dad
I have always thought that the Hwy 141 corridor is one of the most spectacular and beautiful drives in the state of Colorado. The variety of rocks, cliffs, and general topography from one end to the other, and the varnish (I have always called it patina) is a big part of the beauty.

This is only my second earthcache. :-)

Answers sent in a message.

06/22/2020 By geoawareUSA2
Published