Tag: Geology
-
How the massive landslide that created Colorado’s 2nd-largest lake could also cause it to vanish
Formed about 700 years ago when a landslide blocked the Lake Fork of the Gunnison River, Colorado’s Lake San Cristobal is the state’s second-largest natural lake with a water surface of about 331 acres. That said, the same phenomenon that birthed this stunning aquatic scene may also lead to its demise. Dubbed a National Natural…
-
‘A 36 million-year-old mystery solved’: Gem reveals secret to Castle Rock’s formation
One spring day last year, Mark Longman was hiking around Castlewood Canyon State Park with questions that mounted with every boulder and rock wall he passed. A career geologist and longtime Denver resident, Longman knew it to be conglomerate rock populating the park near Franktown. He knew the rock at Castlewood to be the same,…
-
Just south of Colorado border, you can walk into a volcano crater
CAPULIN, N.M. • Just beyond Colorado’s southern border into New Mexico, a lonely highway runs through fields of cattle and pronghorn, of windmills and splintered, crumbling remains of homesteads. Then the mountain emerges. Now the imagination travels to a time long before the Wild West. The mountain’s shape is unmistakable — “a striking example of…
-
Down to Earth and out of this world: A look at Colorado’s old rock shops
Colorado’s oldest rock shops date to the 1970s, a time that stirs nostalgia and visions of an open road and a changing America. These were stops along the way. Stops to escape social and political strife for little worlds of Earth’s wonders. They are still that. Take, for example, The Rock Hut, which Jim and…