Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Week 7 - Badlands, Golden Canyon and Gower Gulch Loop





For this weeks travel journal, I visited the Golden Canyon, Gower Gulch and the Badlands. I am able to see a landscape of golden colored hills and winding narrow canyons that are important for my hiking adventure. The Badlands loop is about 2.7 miles for the entire loop. I would describe this area as having narrow drainage's. I would like to examine the softer sedimentary rocks and clay-rich soils that have been extensively eroded by wind and water.  I would ask the question about how long ago  the badlands were formed because of their composition of ancient lake bed. There are also steep slopes here and minimal vegetation. Next, is the Golden Canyon. I wonder what type of rocks are found here because I can see a rocky corridor and some spots that require additional climbing. There are brightly colored sandstone rocks that come in glowing shades of orange, gold and red. Lastly is the Gower Gulch Loop. The walk back to the car is gradually downhill. The Gower Gulch loop is made up of red mud stone and colorful mosaic conglomerates. There is occasionally broken pavement which tells me that there was once a road here and I wonder how long ago the road existed. This whole loop is important to see on a geological map because it would tell me about the distribution of different kinds of rocks, surficial deposits and faults or folds. From what I can tell, there are both faults and folds in the rocks here. Quaternary erosional and depositional processes are responsible for most of the modern landscape.  

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