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Cracked mud pattern, Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, Farmington, New Mexico, USA.

Cracked mud pattern with pebbles, Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, south of Farmington, in San Juan County, New Mexico, USA. This fantasy world of strange rock formations is made of interbedded sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal, and silt. These rock layers have weathered into eerie hoodoos (pinnacles, spires, and cap rocks). This was once a riverine delta west of an ancient sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which covered much of New Mexico 70 million years ago. Swamps built up organic material which became beds of lignite. Water disappeared and left behind a 1400-foot (430 m) layer of jumbled sandstone, mudstone, shale, and coal. The ancient sedimentary deposits were uplifted with the rest of the Colorado Plateau, starting about 25 million years ago. Waters of the last ice age eroded the hoodoos now visible. The high desert widerness of Bisti is managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

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Filename
1403SWC-132_Bisti_De-Na-Zin-Wilderness.jpg
Copyright
© Carol Dempsey / PhotoSeek.com
Image Size
4500x3375 / 5.8MB
http://www.photoseek.com/
Contained in galleries
2014 Mar 15-Apr 09: all: southwest (UT, NM, TX), OR, CA, New Mexico: Bisti / De-Na-Zin Wilderness
Cracked mud pattern with pebbles, Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, south of Farmington, in San Juan County, New Mexico, USA. This fantasy world of strange rock formations is made of interbedded sandstone, shale, mudstone, coal, and silt. These rock layers have weathered into eerie hoodoos (pinnacles, spires, and cap rocks). This was once a riverine delta west of an ancient sea, the Western Interior Seaway, which covered much of New Mexico 70 million years ago. Swamps built up organic material which became beds of lignite. Water disappeared and left behind a 1400-foot (430 m) layer of jumbled sandstone, mudstone, shale, and coal. The ancient sedimentary deposits were uplifted with the rest of the Colorado Plateau, starting about 25 million years ago. Waters of the last ice age eroded the hoodoos now visible. The high desert widerness of Bisti is managed by the US Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
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