PEFO Chinle Formation pictures: late 2009-early 2010

Since Bill is in Austin now, I must post cool Chinle Formation pictures myself. These are nearly all from the Painted Desert/Devil's Playground area in the northern part of the park, where I am doing most of my field work now:

This first is in the extreme southwest corner of Devil's Playground. This area mostly exposes the Sonsela Member, which is an extremely sandy member with a lot of prominent sandstone beds that weather out to give Devil's Playground its striking topography. Here the highest capping sandstone weathers out as big blocks onto the surface of a slightly more friable gray sandstone that weathers into "hoodoos." This weathering pattern gives a hint of the compositional variation of these sandstones, which is an important clue that allows us to correlate beds in the northern and southern parts of the park.

The Painted Desert on a rainy day.


We got a ton of snow dumped on us in the past month, and now it is all melting and washing the reddish mudstones of the Painted Desert away.


I like this picture a lot; the black thing in the mid-ground is a petrified log weathering out of the Black Forest Bed.


My favorite little petroglyph. Little marmot dude or something. It is all by itself in the shadow of a mesa not far from Devil's Playground.

A deformed rabbit.

LNJ

Things On The Internet That Jeff Found Amusing (January 2010)

I don't have time for obscenity or deep thinking today. My computer was the victim of a totally unprovoked viral/worm attack of some kind even though I had TWO up-to-date anti-virus programs installed. I wiped the operating system and am re-installing everything.

Here is the life reconstruction of Vancleavea I did a while ago. I'm tinkering with a cross-section reconstruction of the Sonsela Member fluvial system. Meh. At least the snow has melted enough for me to start getting out in the field again.

1,000,000 People Who Believe in Evolution: I'm not normally into facebook groups, but I'll make an exception for this one.

Vanity Fair's Review of the Creationist Museum: The writer took along Paul Bettany, who took the photographs. Yes, I mean Stephen Maturin/Charles Darwin-playing Paul Bettany. How fucking cool is that.

Hark, A Vagrant!: Historical comics! Sweet! There are even a few about science. This one isn't, but I like it. And this one. Too bad I've completely sworn off girls named Kate.

Beaker's Ode To Joy: I admire Beaker. He goes to work every day knowing that no matter what happens, he is going to get fucked, yet he remains upbeat.

Jack Bauer Interrogates Santa

What Goes With Jesus Wafers? Hmmm.... Two great tastes that taste great together.

LNJ