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Trona Pinnacles

Trona Pinnacles rock formations. Light painted w/ Xenon from out the right side.

 

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This was an incredible place to be at night under the full moon, it's a completely surreal environment. Many movies and commercials have been shot here to simulate a lunar or extraterrestrial landscape. Here is a description of the pinnacles from the www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/ridgecrest/trona.html site about the area:

 

However it may appear to you, a visit to the Trona Pinnacles will be a journey into one of the most unusual geologic wonders in the California Desert. This unique landscape consists of more than 500 tufa (calcium carbonate) pinnacles rising from the bed of the Searles Dry Lake basin. These tufa spires, some as high as 140 feet, were formed underwater 10,000 to 100,000 years ago when Searles Lake formed a link in an interconnected chain of Pleistocene lakes stretching from Mono Lake to Death Valley.

 

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Uploaded on September 16, 2008
Taken on September 13, 2008