#san rafael swell

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San Rafael Swell Pictographs & Petroglyphs

[twoseparatecoursesmeet]

The San Rafael Swell, 1989

Mickey Crisp

[johnnyslittleanimalblog]

Family by Jeff Goldberg

[speedyz3]

There is something about the colors, laters and textures of the the desert southwest that’s will always amaze me.

[thomaswaynewolf]

[desertvagrant]

Photos take from my "Backyard."

[fieldnotesofmymind]

Places I've been!

[travelella]

San Rafael Swell, Emery County, Utah, USA

Alex Moliski

[traildogartisans]

Window Blind Peak in the San Rafael Swell

Window Blind Peak is one of the many phenomenal geologic formations in Utah's San Rafael Swell. A view on an autumn morning as we were heading into the canyons region.

[followjacobbarlow]

Swasey Cabin

Swasey Cabin was built in 1921 in the heart of Sinbad Country, by Joseph Swasey. The Cabin was built from Douglas Dir from Eagle Canyon near by. Remnants of the Swasey family farm depict the western heritage. The Swasey family grazed livestock in the area for the later part of the nineteenth century. The cabin served as shelter for members of the Swasey family and other cowboys. There is also…

[dougrobyngoold]

Lower Crack Canyon Hike - San Rafael Swell, UT

The last time we were in this area, we hiked Upper Crack Canyon. Unfortunately, we got stymied by a pour-off that we couldn’t navigate. Today we hiked up Lower Crack Canyon to that point. It was about 10 miles roundtrip.

The hike starts in the same wash that heads toward Wild Horse Canyon, but the signs lead you out of the wash and toward Lower Crack Canyon.

Finally, the walls started to get taller.

Beautiful pour-off in Lower Crack Canyon.

The walls got steeper and closer together, as we got closer to the narrows.

Entering the narrows:

Made it to our turn-around point, we didn’t feel like getting our feet wet OR trying to navigate our way up that rope. We touched the big rock on the left and called it “done”.

[natures-moments]

San Rafael Swell, Central Utah, USA

[twoseparatecoursesmeet]

Eagle Canyon in the San Rafael Swell, Utah, 1984

Mickey Crisp

[utahunfiltered]

Sunrise in the San Rafael Swell, March 2, 2024.

[mineralsrocksandfossiltalks]

FOSSIL FRIDAY

Today we will talk about Petrified Wood!

One of the most common fossils, petrified wood is is tree or tree-like wood that has either been fossilized through replacement or permineralization. Usually, the organic material is replicated by silica (quartz or it's microcrystalline forms opal or chalcedony).

Petrified wood forms when woody plants are buried in saturated sediments with dissolved minerals in solution. The lack of oxygen slows decay and allows fossilization to occur.

Below are petrified wood and cycad specimens I have collected over the years from various localities I have worked at. All come from Late Jurassic sites.

The first is from the Salt Wash Member of the Morrison Formation in northwestern Colorado. It has been replaced by silica, most likely the microcrystalline quartz form, chalcedony.

The second is from the same location and has definitely been replaced by chalcedony. In this case, it looks to be the "flint" variety.

The third photo contains pieces of of wood from the Late Jurassic Swift Formation in northwest central Montana (It's a huge state. I need to be that weirdly specific). These are partially petrified and partially coalified. They still retain some of the original organic material which leaves a black residue on the fingers.

The fourth photograph are pieces that came from the Brushy Basin Member of the Morrison Formation in the San Rafael Swell of Utah. These have been permineralized by quartz.

Finally, the last two show cycads, a type of woody plant that was a prominent part of the Mesozoic woodlands and prairies. These specimens came from the same Salt Wash site as the first two tree specimens. These have also been replaced by chalcedony.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

National Park Service is actually on my shit list, but they could probably get off of it if they wanted to.

Recently they've been involved in some land-grab type behavior. It was a big thing in Utah - it kinda felt like they created a few parks with no intention of actually developing them with trails or anything, mostly just to prevent oil wells in the huge swathes of nothing much between a couple pockets of genuinely cool things that should be preserved. (Not to say that flat desert land should be totally disregarded - but honestly, oil wells are REALLY unobtrusive, and anybody who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. Solar farms destroy desert ecosystems, oil wells do not.) Anyway, one of the good, but not terribly important things that Trump did was reduce the size of one park, and instead make a monument in this really awesome place called the San Rafael Swell. Win/win, in my book.

Also, the Park Service, at least in Yellowstone, has made things completely inaccessible to anyone who isn't really rich. All the hotels, shops, and so forth are controlled by one company (because the government loves a monopoly) and now my family doesn't think we can afford to go there again, even though it used to be a big thing for us. Last time we were there, a HUGE portion of the guests were foreign. There's absolutely nothing wrong with people visiting this country to see amazing places - that's great, actually! But it's starting to feel like Yellowstone is a place for the world's wealthy, while they're pricing out most Americans. Which is kinda messed up.

Yeah, the NPS is still a government agency with all that entails, sadly. It's just not actively killing people and constantly trying to strip us of our rights on the daily.