Monument Valley, Utah, USA, 27th October 2014.

Heading from Arches National Park towards Monument Valley, we stopped off at Indian Hat, where there is a curious balanced rock.  This is an infrared view.

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Suddenly, a truck unexpectedly thundered along the narrow dirt road.  The sign on the side of the cabin says “Monument Resources Rock Products”.  So maybe getting a load of gravel for a road.  This may look like a normal image but actually it’s infrared.  You can get the colours to do all sorts of things.

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Conversely, here is Indian Hat in natural colours.

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Now this one looks more like infrared, also beside Indian Head.  I have been separating out the infrared images in separate posts but there are only a few this time.

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Here it is.  Monument Valley.  John Wayne.  Stagecoach.  Navajo land.

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The mesas are from Permian era sandstone, originally deposited from sand dunes, eroded away over a long period of time to leave what you see.  The very top of the “monuments” are capped by triassic rocks, which would imply that the rocks between Permian and Triassic times eroded away.  However, it’s not as simple as just erosion because the whole Colorado Plateau was uplifted between 70 million and 40 million years ago, originally from sea level to 5,000 metres above.

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The shadows are lengthening.  in this case the shadows of other members of the group.

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And now the light’s getting quite low.

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There was a sun there, but now it’s gone.

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