Isn’t it funny how taking macro pictures can throw your sense of perspective and size?
This is a small area of a boulder which lies on the canyon floor in the Valley of Fire. I came across it when we were doing the short hike to Mouse’s Tank – it’s a pretty section of the park, where the trail passes through a narrow canyon with a sandy floor. The rocks themselves are sandstone with a high iron content, and this is what gives them their beautiful pink/red/orange hues.
Can you guess how big the boulder is? Even after my telling you that it lies on the floor of the canyon you don’t know, do you? And that’s partly because it’s a close up, and partly because those concretions you see sticking out of the surface like iron studs on an ancient castle door could be any size at all. Are they big enough to sit on? Or are they so tiny that you’d only feel them as bumps in the surface if you ran your hand over them?
The answer (of course) is that they’re really quite small, because it is, after all, Macro Monday!  At a guess, I’d say they were about half an inch tall, and the boulder about two feet across – though I’m notoriously bad at estimating size.
Concretions happen in sedimentary rocks when particles get trapped in the sand as the rock is forming. Sometimes it’s a small piece of organic matter, like a piece of shell or a tooth. Sometimes it’s just random minerals, which form little clumps as they crystallise out of the ground water, with the rock forming around them over the millennia. These ones might well have formed around iron oxides, or perhaps there are tiny seeds inside them which were scattered across the desert floor 180 million years ago and got turned to stone by the heat and the pressure of being buried under tons of sand.
Anyway. The reason you can see them now, is that the softer sandstone wears away from around these little hard lumps of mineralised rock and they break through the surface like tiny hoodoos.
I hope you enjoyed your mini geology lesson – I’m not an expert, but I pick up this stuff because I’m fascinated by it, and I fell in love with the rocks of Utah and Nevada.
Don’t worry. I promise I’ll find you something different for next week! Meanwhile, have some fun staring at that picture and trying to imagine the concretions as different sizes.
Can you see tiny hikers down there among them?
Hey Jay! This is great. My first impression was landscape on Mars. Now if you had a second shot showing a scorpion or some other critter, we’d have a sense of scale.
I could imagine tall skinny Martians sitting on the concretions playing their version of Mars poker. Thanks for a good one.
John McDevitt´s last blog ..Monday Musings: Transformation of a Rose
okay, you got me. i see the hikers.
margie´s last blog ..simple macro things
Interesting lessons! most people would not give them even a second glance much more taking shots of them!
Jama´s last blog ..Sunflowers
They look like petrified muffins.
Baino´s last blog ..Me Tarzan . .Need Ladder
Even after you telling us how big you thought the studs were, I still couldn’t visualise the boulder. Great shot.
Mara´s last blog ..K1P1 to give away!
John and Mara – Thanks! Unfortunately, I didn’t see any scorpions, or I’d have taken a picture! And since I was photographing the rock for myself alone, I didn’t include anything for scale – I simply wanted the rock surface with its interesting texture and contrasts. But I’ve now added the size of the boulder to the post, because you’re both right. You need to be able to visualise it.
Margie – Haha! I knew you would!
Jama – Well, you see, my special interest is in detail – it’s why I love insects, too, I suppose! They’re small, and often beautifully detailed.
Baino – Petrified muffins! ROFL!! Now why didn’t I think of that?
I thought it was a moon shot:)
But now I know thanks for the lesson.
Have a nice day
Gunilla
Gunilla´s last blog ..Macro Monday
Whoo hoo more rocks..love it!! Wonderful shot and the geology lesson was good too. I am married to a rock man… a mineralogist…so there are rocks all over our house!! Nice to meet you!! Sarah
Sarah´s last blog ..Macro Monday
Nice – I think it’s about time someone started up a geology carnival! I don’t know what the larger boulder looks like but it’s neat to see just a part of it and try to visualize what it might look like. Cool photograph.
Dave Ingram´s last blog ..Crinoid Country
Great post. Isn’t it amazing how much we notice when we carry our cameras with us?
EG Wow!´s last blog ..Can’t Wait/ Ruby Tueesday
Hi Jay..it may be the monitor..but it is amethyst.. I blurred this one a bit on purpose. The clear on is Apophyllite. Hubby said..”Cool” to your macro!! Sarah
Interesting lessons and a good shot!
Birgitta´s last blog ..Macro Monday
It makes me think of a martian landscape.
Lisa’s Chaos´s last blog ..spiderwebs and fungus (Macro Monday)
Amazing and such a beautiful colour
foto CHIP Sweden´s last blog ..Macro Monday – Spiderwalk
At first I thought you were going to blog about a baking mishap! This is a fascinating post. Cool shots!
Gel´s last blog ..Insomnia No-No’s
Gunilla – Well now, a moon shot would have made a great blog post, wouldn’t it? LOL!
Sarah – Nice to meet you too! I’m so glad your husband thinks my picture is cool. I’m honoured!
So it is amethyst? Mine is much more purple! And the other I thought was a clear quartz. Thanks for the info.
Dave Ingram – Thank you! I’m glad you like it. It was all so photogenic, and I’d taken dozens of pictures of the larger scene. That’s when I began to take detail shots, and I notice I’m better at those, too. Worked out well for me!
EG Wow – That is so true. I notice far more when I’m carrying a camera, and once I start taking pictures, I notice more still. It’s a good discipline and fun hobby.
Birgitta – Thank you!
Lisa’s Chaos – Me too! I wonder if Mars looks like Utah?
foto CHIP – Thanks – yes, those rocks are a gorgeous colour, aren’t they?
Gel – Haha! Well, if I had made concretions in the kitchen, I’d still have eaten them!
Thanks!
fascinating – sid update??
Very creative and not something I had heard of before. Learned a new word…
Just beautiful! Love the color. Great photo