Spring Break Trip With the Geology Club

This spring break , I got the unbelievable opportunity to explore and camp the Chihuahuan desert in Big Bend National/State Park. This park is home to so many perplexing structural features, it's both known as the geologist's paradise and nightmare. 30 million years ago a series of tectonic events ripped, crushed, scorched, lifted, buried, and exploded the thick layers of rock beds giving the desert a tremendous and complex landscape.   Although I took a ton of pictures in the park for my own geo-dork purposes, here are some of the particularly well composed shots (of complete incidence, I assure you).

Our three grad students and professor Dr. Gries.

The desert is usually more lush and green, but

the past year only saw 3 inches out of an average

 annual rainfall of 20 inches.

This stuff is tuff.

Remnants of a mercury mining venture in
Fresno Canyon.

Here's the whole gang checking out a stream bed that once
supported the small mining community.

In case you needed proof that I was there. This day we were

exploring part of a formation called the Solitario. The small

mountains behind me are a section called the right shut-up.

They were also the inspiration for many easy jabs.

Because of the drought, we only saw one of these

flowering cacti about every mile.

This is the Mule Ear formation. Modeled here by Isabel

 Heheehe!

We found these blow-painted pictographs of hands on the

ceiling of an overhanging wall. There were rubber mats leading

up to the overhang suggesting that archaeologists were

probably recording them sometime that day, and that they
were total wimps.

The left side is Mexico! This is a canyon that the Rio Grande

formed between the Boufacillos mountain range and the

Sierra Rica range in Mexico.

Cooling our tootsies in the Rio after a hot hike.
The water was about 45 degrees in the gorge
even though the air temp was 90!

And lastly, the Resurrection plant: this (shrub?) only

grows in Big Bend and Israel. When dry, the softball size

plant stays in a little brown ball. But when it's watered

it opens up and turns green within about 2 hours.

(So sue me, we didn't wait around that long.)