A Photo a Week Challenge: Natural Monuments
The Superstition Mountains of Arizona is familiar to everyone who watches western movies. Viewed from close up, they are even more formidable than they look on-screen.
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Categories: #gallery, #Photography, Arizona, Mountains, Nature, Photo A Week Challenge
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Looking at the fault lines some major geological activity must have taken place there.
Leslie
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Oh, I’m sure. I think this is one of the areas that was underwater for a long time while dinosaurs roamed. And I’m sure there are old seismic fault lines there. We even have some of them around here, where there’s been almost no activity for hundreds of years.
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As I ‘ve been told and read about, Arizona was, at one time, hot with seismic and volcanic activity. In the northern part of the state is a mountain range known as the.., uh.., “San Francisco Peaks” and, of course, they are no where near San Francisco, CA. These mountains represent hundreds of eruptions from a vast river of lava flowing under the ground. The last known eruption was at Sunset Crater roughly 1000 years ago and there is an impressive lava flow still visible, now cold of course, but awe inspiring in its size. The terrain is still recovering from that massive eruption flow and vegetation is slowly returning, but it won’t be complete in our lifetime.
There are signs elsewhere of large swaths of Arizona being under water. So, between all of this erosive and tumultuous volcanic/seismic activity, you see the spectacular formations so well represented here in your photos. While it took me, being a transplanted easterner, a while to appreciate this desert landscape, I finally saw the beauty in it and am continuously amazed at the planet we live on.
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I remember those huge lava flows up near the Grand Canyon, so obviously there were active volcanoes in this current era, which apparently (I just looked it up) is called the “Holocene” era. I think Arizona has some of the most amazing terrain anywhere. Not only beautiful, but so varied and majestic.
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If you want to be amazed while wandering in the Arizona desert, as you’re walking you look down and see what appears to be an interesting rock. You bend down and pick it up realizing it’s really a sea shell of some kind. What the!..? a sea shell here in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest ocean being about 400 miles away to the west? Phoenix is apparently, or possibly, part of an ancient sea bed and the previously mentioned volcanic action was taking place at 7000 – 8000ft above sea level. So, which part of this state was a beach town? Continents drift, platelets shift, seas rise and fall, ice forms and then melts, seas rise again, the globe gets warmer.., what’s the next challenge to man’s existence?
Sometimes I look at mankind as just some sort of a viral infection on the surface of this planet, and not as important as we think we are.
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I’m sure Arizona was indeed under a huge, shallow sea way back when. That fossil store we went to was selling a lot of fossilized remains they have found all over Arizona and other part of the southwest. Your area is dinosaur bone central, although Wyoming has the prize for the most tyrannosaurus skeletons. I think of Big Bird and iguanas as the descendants 🙂
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Wonderful captures of such amazing mountains with Cacti and blue skies Marilyn. Must have been awe inspiring to see them up close
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Awe inspiring and daunting. I know men actually combed those rocks searching for gold, but a less hospitable place I cannot imagine. Dry, hot, no water, no grass for horses. No place for living creatures, except maybe lizards and snakes.
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Wonderful images. Perfect for the challenge. Thanks!
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Arizona has some of the most amazing natural landscapes. The Superstitions were real visual “grabbers” !
Great challenge this week!
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A memorable week in John Ford country.
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