Sunday, August 31, 2014

Roxborough State Park


My younger son and I took a short hike today at Roxborough State Park. 


I was expecting the park to be a collection of meadows among a few outcroppings of the red stone from the Fountain Formation, the geological layer associated with the famed Red Rocks amphitheater west of Denver.  What I found were outcroppings that looked like gigantic mounds of Play-Doh.  



There were also immense cliffs of the Fountain Formation rock.  The cliffs started as Play-Doh and then transitioned to jagged slabs.


Originally, the Fountain Formation layer was below the Lyons Formation layer.  Tectonic forces tilted both layers up so that they run side by side in Roxborough park.  In the photo below, the reddish Fountain outcropping is in front of the lighter Lyons Formation cliff. 

  
The Lyons Formation generally looks like dirty sand with occasional black streaks.


I didn't ask my younger son to pose for the camera, but here he is on the trail in front of me (in the blue shirt).  He was pulling a water bottle from his pack at the moment.


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