Gravity
This barn was near the south end of the La Plata Canyon Road, the road that runs from US 160 up into the canyon where our campground was. This barn might have been here for 140 years, but gravity is taking hold. It's in the slow process of succumbing to gravity.
That little hill behind the barn was interesting to me. It looks like a long, steep wall that runs the length of the road from the mouth of the canyon all the way to the US highway. It's deceptively tall. Google Earth suggests the top is about 50 feet above the level of the bottom. It's flat up there, forming a big, wedge-shaped terrace between La Plata Canyon Road and 160.
At first I thought this was a moraine, a pile of debris left behind by a glacier. (I live in Illinois, so I talk about moraines all the time. You should know what a moraine is.) After thinking about it, though, I've decided this is something different. According to the internet, there was a big glacier in La Plata Canyon at one time that flowed into this valley, and as that glacier retreated, it did leave a bunch of debris. But a melting glacier also dumps a lot of water, and that water is often full of sediment. So that's what I think this is. I think it's a platform of glacial outwash sediment that once fill this valley. Over time, through, the La Plata River, a little stream about 800 feet behind me, cut down into the sediment, leaving the terrace you see here.
I looked on the internet to try to confirm that, but this is a small canyon for a geologist to focus on, and I didn't find anything. So this is just a theory. Somebody else might tell you something different.
Gravity
This barn was near the south end of the La Plata Canyon Road, the road that runs from US 160 up into the canyon where our campground was. This barn might have been here for 140 years, but gravity is taking hold. It's in the slow process of succumbing to gravity.
That little hill behind the barn was interesting to me. It looks like a long, steep wall that runs the length of the road from the mouth of the canyon all the way to the US highway. It's deceptively tall. Google Earth suggests the top is about 50 feet above the level of the bottom. It's flat up there, forming a big, wedge-shaped terrace between La Plata Canyon Road and 160.
At first I thought this was a moraine, a pile of debris left behind by a glacier. (I live in Illinois, so I talk about moraines all the time. You should know what a moraine is.) After thinking about it, though, I've decided this is something different. According to the internet, there was a big glacier in La Plata Canyon at one time that flowed into this valley, and as that glacier retreated, it did leave a bunch of debris. But a melting glacier also dumps a lot of water, and that water is often full of sediment. So that's what I think this is. I think it's a platform of glacial outwash sediment that once fill this valley. Over time, through, the La Plata River, a little stream about 800 feet behind me, cut down into the sediment, leaving the terrace you see here.
I looked on the internet to try to confirm that, but this is a small canyon for a geologist to focus on, and I didn't find anything. So this is just a theory. Somebody else might tell you something different.