MSGID: 1:317/3 62e2ceee   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    EPOD - a service of USRA   
      
   The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes   
   and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and   
   archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory   
   captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The   
   community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and   
   relevant links.   
      
      
    Idaho’s Granitic City of Rocks   
      
      July 28, 2022   
      
       RayB_CityofRocks1270c_22june22 (003)   
      
       RayB_CityofRocks1250c_22june22 (003)   
      
      It isn’t difficult to understand the wonder experienced by westbound   
      pioneers and  Gold Rush Forty-Niners whose wagon trains rattled   
      through southern Idaho’s  Albion Mountains while crossing North   
      America via the 19th century’s California Trail. The same granite   
      monoliths, spires, domes and cliffs — which to some emigrants resembled   
      urban skylines back East — are encountered at today’s  City of Rocks   
      National Reserve, a unit of the U.S. National Park Service and the   
       Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation that was established in   
      1988. The time-sculpted landscape’s panoramic viewpoints include Window   
      Arch, shown here in a photograph taken on June 22, 2022.   
      
      
      City of Rocks, and nearby  Castle Rock State Park, expose the   
       Almo Pluton and the  Green Creek Complex. Igneous rock intruded   
      into even more ancient rock, up to 2.5 billion years old, and cooled   
      deep in the Earth. Raised by  Basin and Range physiographic dynamics   
      over millions of years, the weathered and often-rounded outcrops might   
      now bring to mind sculpted turtles, armadillos, elephants and trolls as   
      much as cityscapes. In a second image, taken on the same date, summer   
      wildflowers and sage fill a high plain below sawtooth pillars dozens of   
      stories high. The gritty, cracked cliffs and scarps also attract rock   
      climbers, who test their ropes and technical skills on more than 700   
      acknowledged routes. Note the climber atop the pinnacle in the photo at   
      bottom.   
      
      
      The picturesque setting remains sacred to Native American peoples,   
      including  Shoshone and  Paiute tribes, some of whom consider   
      City of Rocks to be their place of origin, the Park Service notes. The   
      historic  California Trail, followed by over 200,000 emigrants   
      between the 1840s and 1880s, diverges south and west from the nearby   
       Oregon Trail, at “the  Parting of the Ways” at the confluence of   
      the  Snake and  Raft rivers, and slices through City of Rocks   
      toward northwestern Utah and Nevada’s  Humboldt River. Some pioneers   
      left names, dates and other inscriptions in axle grease on formations,   
      such as Camp Rock and Register Rock. Freight and stagecoach routes   
      subsequently used the corridor, linking the transcontinental railroad,   
      after its 1869 completion in northern Utah, to Boise, Idaho. Today   
      cattle ranches and alfalfa fields cover vast stretches, as in Almo and   
      the Raft River Valley to the east, while a few in-holdings and   
      homesteads remain within the City of Rocks reserve itself.   
      
      
       RayB_CityofRocks1276ac_22june22 (003)   
      
      
      City of Rocks National Reserve Idaho Coordinates: 42.0727, -113.7038   
      
      
   Related EPODs   
      
       Idaho’s Granitic City of Rocks  Dungeness Spit Beach  Venus   
      in Daylight  Icons of Arizona  Path of the Sun from Two Different   
      Latitudes  Reflections on the Southern Wasatch Mountains   
       More...   
      
   Geography Links   
      
        *  Atlapedia Online   
        *  CountryReports   
        *  GPS Visualizer   
        *  Holt Rinehart Winston World Atlas   
        *  Mapping Our World   
        *  Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection   
        *  Types of Land   
        *  World Mapper   
      
   -   
      Earth Science Picture of the Day is a service of the  Universities   
      Space Research Association.   
      
   https://epod.usra.edu   
       
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