From the Hall of Disjointed Memories, Part 11: Chiaroscuro Krummholz | North Park, Colorado, USA
Looking upslope on a ridge or hill that was the objective of one of our field course's geologic-mapping exercises. I believe this shot was taken on the same day and in the same general locale shown in previously posted photos in this series, beginning with Part 8.
Assuming that's so, I have apparently climbed upsection from the vermilion-colored Chugwater Formation of Triassic age, and am in either the Sundance Formation or Morrison Formation, which are both Jurassic.
Five decades' worth of chemical deterioration in the slide from which this image was scanned has turned what was probably a brighter and more colorful scene into something more brooding, more depressing, and therefore more artistic. Now, completely without my own creative input, it has become a major statement of chiaroscuro—the painting technique of contrasting bright surfaces with dark shadows.
A steep, pathless slope like this is no fun to scramble up. That's especially so when the rocky ground is littered with dead, tanglefoot trunks and branches of fallen krummholz (wind-contorted) trees.
Add to that the fact that this spot is about 9,000 ft (2,743 m) above mean sea level. According to the Center for Wilderness Safety, the percentage of atmospheric oxygen at this height is a little less than 15 percent, a notable and very perceptible drop from the 21 percent found where my fellow Midwestern students and I came from. And the air pressure has dropped by one-quarter, while ultraviolet radiation is approximately 40 percent more intense.
Of course, it's one thing to be a highly ambulatory member of the Kingdom Animalia who can eventually repair to less challenging places, and quite another to be a shrub or coniferous tree that must live its entire life here, in a very exposed location.
Even plants fairly well-adapted to these stressful conditions are often consigned to a Hobbesian existence that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." No wonder there's so much dead wood lying about.
You'll find the other photos and descriptions of this series in my From the Hall of Disjointed Memories album.
From the Hall of Disjointed Memories, Part 11: Chiaroscuro Krummholz | North Park, Colorado, USA
Looking upslope on a ridge or hill that was the objective of one of our field course's geologic-mapping exercises. I believe this shot was taken on the same day and in the same general locale shown in previously posted photos in this series, beginning with Part 8.
Assuming that's so, I have apparently climbed upsection from the vermilion-colored Chugwater Formation of Triassic age, and am in either the Sundance Formation or Morrison Formation, which are both Jurassic.
Five decades' worth of chemical deterioration in the slide from which this image was scanned has turned what was probably a brighter and more colorful scene into something more brooding, more depressing, and therefore more artistic. Now, completely without my own creative input, it has become a major statement of chiaroscuro—the painting technique of contrasting bright surfaces with dark shadows.
A steep, pathless slope like this is no fun to scramble up. That's especially so when the rocky ground is littered with dead, tanglefoot trunks and branches of fallen krummholz (wind-contorted) trees.
Add to that the fact that this spot is about 9,000 ft (2,743 m) above mean sea level. According to the Center for Wilderness Safety, the percentage of atmospheric oxygen at this height is a little less than 15 percent, a notable and very perceptible drop from the 21 percent found where my fellow Midwestern students and I came from. And the air pressure has dropped by one-quarter, while ultraviolet radiation is approximately 40 percent more intense.
Of course, it's one thing to be a highly ambulatory member of the Kingdom Animalia who can eventually repair to less challenging places, and quite another to be a shrub or coniferous tree that must live its entire life here, in a very exposed location.
Even plants fairly well-adapted to these stressful conditions are often consigned to a Hobbesian existence that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." No wonder there's so much dead wood lying about.
You'll find the other photos and descriptions of this series in my From the Hall of Disjointed Memories album.