There is a recent post in this section that asks what place you might like to visit. Today I visited a new place, but I hardly had to leave home. Parts of our property are really hard to get to. One of the things I had on my to-do list since the new heart valve was to start at our deck and walk down the side of the canyon to intersect the winding dirt road that we use to get to the front of the property where I put in the driveway. That seemed like a good place to visit. We have 3 ½ acres, which is nothing to brag about around here, but I wanted to at least explore a little bit.
I had heard there were fossil beds in this area, and (after wandering around a bit) I was delighted to find a loose rock, about the size of a baseball with a clamshell fossil about 1/4th the size of my hand. This is the part that is mind-bending for me. I am clinging to the side of the canyon wall, at an elevation in excess of 7,000 feet. Over my right shoulder is Redondo Mountain. I am told it is the result of a volcanic eruption that was 250 times the force that we saw when St. Helens erupted years ago. The force of that eruption threw dirt and rocks across ½ of New Mexico, all of Oklahoma to fall to earth in parts of Kansas. The caldera of the mountain is one of very view geological formations that can be clearly identified as astronauts orbit the earth. As I thought about the violence of the eruption, the upheaval of the land I stood on-I realized that the little shell fossil in my hand was there for all of it. And the rock in my hand was older than the mountain over my shoulder. I want to think about that.
I had heard there were fossil beds in this area, and (after wandering around a bit) I was delighted to find a loose rock, about the size of a baseball with a clamshell fossil about 1/4th the size of my hand. This is the part that is mind-bending for me. I am clinging to the side of the canyon wall, at an elevation in excess of 7,000 feet. Over my right shoulder is Redondo Mountain. I am told it is the result of a volcanic eruption that was 250 times the force that we saw when St. Helens erupted years ago. The force of that eruption threw dirt and rocks across ½ of New Mexico, all of Oklahoma to fall to earth in parts of Kansas. The caldera of the mountain is one of very view geological formations that can be clearly identified as astronauts orbit the earth. As I thought about the violence of the eruption, the upheaval of the land I stood on-I realized that the little shell fossil in my hand was there for all of it. And the rock in my hand was older than the mountain over my shoulder. I want to think about that.
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