View allAll Photos Tagged quartzite
Beautiful Sioux Quartzite formations and Split Rock Creek. Gorgeous views, everywhere you look! The bridge behind the rock formations to the right gives you the perspective of how gigantic these formations are.
I had never been on the ground level of the cliffs before, but while hiking back to my vehicle I came across a path which was closed to all pedestrial travel. Well of course that wasn't going to deter me, and to my surprise it led to a small quartzite quarry.
This photo is a panorama consisting of three wide-angle photos.
The view when scaling the stone steps of the East bluff. This is red and black Baraboo quartzite - the same rock making up Devil's Doorway, which I skipped on this trip because the slippery conditions and myself being the only person on the trail.
How did this red quartzite happen? Easy:
1.9 billion years ago, some iron got laid down in what would be northern WI.
1.85 billion years ago, a continent crashed into southern WI, and caused the iron deposits to fold up into mountains.
Those mountains eroded, and the iron came down "south" as red sand at the shore of a shallow sea. This eventually turned into sandstone.
1.65 billion years ago, an island chain crashed into WI (maybe). The pressure metamorphosed the sandstone into quartzite.
So, these ripples are REALLY old.
Precambrian Torridonian-Cambrian Quartzite unconformity in Assynt, NW Highlands of Scotland, June 2010
Taken between 6:30 - 7:45 am at Falls Park in Sioux Falls, SD.
I wasn't planning to do a shoot while visiting, so didn't have anything but my phone. It was such a beautiful morning, I couldn't resist.
This huge boulder is a good example of sedimentation and conglamerate rock. You can see chunks of quartzite embedded with sand, sandwiched between layers of sandstone.
Taken between 6:30 - 7:45 am at Falls Park in Sioux Falls, SD.
I wasn't planning to do a shoot while visiting, so didn't have anything but my phone. It was such a beautiful morning, I couldn't resist.
People hunting game most likely traveled this ridge, which provided a dry route above the lake-dotted prairie for thousand of years.
The earlies inhabitants of this region hunted woolly mammals & musk-ox. Beginning with the dominance of prairie about 9,000 years ago, bison & elk provided new sources of food, clothing & fur.
Red Rock Ridge
Ahead of you is apart of Red Rock Ridge, a series of quartzite outcroppings fringes the eastern edge of the "Coteau des Prairies". Named by early French explored, the Coteau-meaning hill or knoll-is a high bedrock plateau sculpted by glaciers & once covered by prairie.