Journeys Across Nevada's Wild Lands (eBook)
A photographic exploration
eBook Download:
EPUB
2020
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1. Auflage
500 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-2691-3 (ISBN)
500 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-2691-3 (ISBN)
Nevada, a land of extremes in topography, aridity, and geology, is a vast and wild area, the seventh largest state. Its 109,826 square-mile land area is roughly equivalent to that of the United Kingdom and Denmark. Nevada's rugged, mountainous topography contrasts dramatically with that of most surrounding regions in the western U.S. Its landscapes and geology are very diverse, beautiful, and far more interesting than first meets the eye. Our photos may surprise you! In addition, the geology of Nevada is remarkably complex. Other states will seem tame by comparison. A little geology background, just enough to be dangerous, will enable you to see and understand things you never knew were there. This is a book with captivating scenery, colors, patterns, and landscapes, and some surprising historic vignettes. Additionally, it is a travel companion that will make your Nevada trips more informative and enjoyable and will assist in your exploration and adventure. We present photos, maps, and brief explanations of what you are seeing when you drive through Nevada, from a geological perspective. We have tried to inform you, the traveler, about Nevada's geological resources and geologic history, about human impacts, and the 'law of unintended consequences.' You will share in discovery of many wild places and points of interest, and you may find a few nuggets of information here and there. Because this book is designed for use on road trips, we assume you are a voyager with a companion, your navigator/copilot. While you are driving or stopping to admire a view, your copilot reads, directs, and narrates the scenery and geologic story of Nevada. You will find that the best times for seeing Nevada are early to mid-morning and late afternoon to early evening, when colors and shadows are most dramatic. Join us and enjoy the journey.
Nevada is a land of extremes--a vast, mountainous, dry place almost empty of people. Its 109,826 square-mile land area is roughly equivalent to that of the United Kingdom and Denmark. Journeying through or across Nevada the landscape sometimes seems forbidding--bleak, barren, dusty, inhospitable. But, with a bit of narration and the right light, Nevada's landscapes and geology are revealed to be very diverse, beautiful, and highly interesting. Not only is it a wild, captivating land, Nevada also holds the keys to understanding the geologic evolution of much of western North America. Its geology is extremely diverse and spans about 2.5 billion years. A crazy array of rocks. Immense thrust faults. Countless volcanic centers and lava flows. Normal faults everywhere. Innumerable mineral deposits. Outstanding scenery. With dramatic photography, original color maps, and vignettes, this is the traveler's essential travel companion along journeys through time and space across Nevada. Some adjacent scenic parts of California are also described East-west routes include Interstate 80 (through Reno and Elko), U.S. 50 (styled "e;the loneliest road in America"e;), U.S. 6 (probably even lonelier), and Interstate 15 (the main route to Las Vegas). North-south routes include U.S. 395/Interstate 580, State Route 447 (the route to Burningman), U.S. 95 (through an area with some of Nevada's darkest history), U.S. 93, and State Route 375 (styled "e;the extraterrestrial highway"e;). With this book, our first objective is to produce a book that will appeal to people interested in the American West. It has compelling scenery, colors, patterns, and landscapes. Second and more importantly, this book will make a journey through Nevada more informative and enjoyable, and will assist travelers in exploration and adventure. Two beginning chapters outline processes and Nevada's geologic history. We then use landscape photos, original color maps, cross sections, and text to decipher, explain, and clarify the scenery, geology, and geologic history--in time and space--along major routes. You will share in discovery of many wild places and points of interest, and you may find a few nuggets of information here and there. You will also discover Nevada's geological resources and geologic history, human impacts, and the "e;law of unintended consequences."e; Because this book is designed for use on road trips, we assume you are a voyager with a companion, your navigator/copilot. While you are driving or stopping to admire a view, your copilot reads, directs, and narrates the scenery and geologic story of Nevada. You will find that the best times for seeing Nevada are early to mid-morning and late afternoon to early evening, when colors and shadows are most dramatic. Join us and enjoy the journey.
Nevada is a land of extremes--a vast, mountainous, dry place almost empty of people. Its 109,826 square-mile land area is roughly equivalent to that of the United Kingdom and Denmark. Journeying through or across Nevada the landscape sometimes seems forbidding--bleak, barren, dusty, inhospitable. But, with a bit of narration and the right light, Nevada's landscapes and geology are revealed to be very diverse, beautiful, and highly interesting. Not only is it a wild, captivating land, Nevada also holds the keys to understanding the geologic evolution of much of western North America. Its geology is extremely diverse and spans about 2.5 billion years. A crazy array of rocks. Immense thrust faults. Countless volcanic centers and lava flows. Normal faults everywhere. Innumerable mineral deposits. Outstanding scenery. With dramatic photography, original color maps, and vignettes, this is the traveler's essential travel companion along journeys through time and space across Nevada. Some adjacent scenic parts of California are also described East-west routes include Interstate 80 (through Reno and Elko), U.S. 50 (styled "e;the loneliest road in America"e;), U.S. 6 (probably even lonelier), and Interstate 15 (the main route to Las Vegas). North-south routes include U.S. 395/Interstate 580, State Route 447 (the route to Burningman), U.S. 95 (through an area with some of Nevada's darkest history), U.S. 93, and State Route 375 (styled "e;the extraterrestrial highway"e;). With this book, our first objective is to produce a book that will appeal to people interested in the American West. It has compelling scenery, colors, patterns, and landscapes. Second and more importantly, this book will make a journey through Nevada more informative and enjoyable, and will assist travelers in exploration and adventure. Two beginning chapters outline processes and Nevada's geologic history. We then use landscape photos, original color maps, cross sections, and text to decipher, explain, and clarify the scenery, geology, and geologic history--in time and space--along major routes. You will share in discovery of many wild places and points of interest, and you may find a few nuggets of information here and there. You will also discover Nevada's geological resources and geologic history, human impacts, and the "e;law of unintended consequences."e; Because this book is designed for use on road trips, we assume you are a voyager with a companion, your navigator/copilot. While you are driving or stopping to admire a view, your copilot reads, directs, and narrates the scenery and geologic story of Nevada. You will find that the best times for seeing Nevada are early to mid-morning and late afternoon to early evening, when colors and shadows are most dramatic. Join us and enjoy the journey.
CHAPTER 1--ABOUT NEVADA AND HOW THE EARTH WORKS
Nevada, a land of extremes in topography, aridity, and geology, lies astride several major transcontinental highways, flight paths, and transportation routes. In fact, nearly every highway traveler, airline or train passenger traveling between the central and eastern U.S., the Pacific coast and California will pass through or over parts of Nevada. Nevada is a vast, arid area, the seventh largest state, 320 miles at its widest part by 480 miles in its greatest N-S dimension. Its 109,826 square-mile land area is roughly equivalent to that of the United Kingdom and Denmark.
Nevada’s rugged, mountainous topography (Figure 1-1) contrasts dramatically with that of most surrounding regions in the western U.S. In detail, this rugged topography is defined by about 200 mountain ranges (depending on who’s counting), most extending north-northeast to south-southwest, and looming 4,000 to 6,000 feet above narrow, intervening valleys. This is the characteristic “basin-and-range-topography” of the western U.S.
Figure 1-1. Digital shaded relief map of the western United States, with outline of Nevada, modified from Simpson, D.W., and Anders, M.H., 1992.
Most of Nevada is extremely arid, high desert, which, along with parts of southeastern California and western Arizona, makes up one of the driest areas of the U.S. In most of the state rainfall averages less than 10 inches a year. Most of the state, referred to as the “Great Basin,” has no throughgoing drainage, and “rivers go here to die” (Meldahl, 2012).
It is no surprise that Nevada is mostly unpopulated. The only major population centers are near the southern tip (Las Vegas, Henderson, North Las Vegas) and along the western edge (Reno-Sparks and Carson City)(Figure 1-2), both areas near major rivers. Of an estimated population of 2.8 million (2014), about 1.7 million are in these two metro areas. The rest of the state is nearly empty of people, one of the emptiest such regions in the U.S., averaging fewer than 2.5 persons per square mile.
E-W and N-S routes covered in this book. I-80, U.S. 50, U.S. 6, and I-15, all at a high angle to the topographic grain, are considered east-west routes. I-80, the most heavily traveled land route, follows the courses of two major rivers that dry up, the Truckee River in the west and the Humboldt River in the north-central part of the state.
Figure 1-2. Nevada routes described in this book, plotted on shaded relief map. The block arrows show the directions taken in this book (e.g., I-80, west to east).
U.S. 395, S.R. 447, U.S. 93, and S.R. 375, which generally follow the topographic grain, are grouped as north-south routes. In reality, I-15 and S.R. 375 don’t fit this classification very well, as they run northeast and southwest, respectively.
Nothing seems more permanent than the Earth or, for that matter, Nevada’s landscape. During our eyeblink of existence on this planet, very little of the land changes. Driving across Nevada, the high mountains and dry desert valleys seem changeless (Photo 1-1). Even though winds, rain, and flash floods carry dust, silt, sand, boulders and mud from the mountains and spread them at our feet, we are accustomed to thinking of Nevada’s mountains and valleys as always having been there, frozen in time.
Photo 1-1. View south along U.S. 95, looking across Montezuma Valley and several Nevada ranges toward Mount Whitney and the Sierra Nevada crest in California.
Our human perspective is misleading. Earth operates on a different time scale. Our lifetimes (~80 years) are but nanoseconds compared to Earth’s 4.7 billion years. We need to think of a different way of measuring time to comprehend what is going on around us and beneath our feet.
The surface of the Earth is moving, especially here in Nevada. Everywhere. Up, down, sideways. In rare cases it moves as much as 1 or 2 centimeters (almost an inch) a year, about as fast as our fingernails grow. In most places, however, the movement is less than a millimeter a year (about 0.04 inch per year), and we see nothing happening. Nevada has periodic large earthquakes, which momentarily attract our attention. During these large earthquakes, the surface sometimes jumps or slides 1 to 3 meters (3 to 10 feet). Except for these earthquakes, the movement of Earth’s surface is imperceptibly ….s….l….o….w…. to us. We would never see the changes in an area of Nevada if we came back again and again every year, once every ten or twenty years, or even twice in a lifetime. The landscape is the same as Clarence King saw it in the 1860’s, during the 40th Parallel Survey.
Earth and the Solar System have been around an inconceivably long time. Chemical measurements on Earth rocks and objects from space, and astrophysical calculations tell us the age of Earth is about 4.7 billion years. This is a hard number to grasp, except when talking about federal deficits! It is 4,700,000,000 years, or 58,750,000 human lifetimes. 47 million centuries. Four million seven hundred thousand millennia. 4,700 times 1 million years.
What if we decided to use one million years (m.y.) instead of one year as a timescale to measure what Earth has done in Nevada? During 1 m.y., Earth orbits the Sun one million times. During 1 m.y., many things happen to a Nevada landscape. The Sun rises and sets 365 million times. Over 700 million morning and evening breezes blow. Countless storms and cloudbursts wash over the Nevada landscape in a million years.
On a 1 m.y. timescale, the surface in Nevada is really jumping. One or two centimeters a year become 10,000 to 20,000 meters (~6 to 12 miles) per m.y. A millimeter a year is 1 kilometer per m.y. (about 6/10 of a mile). In 10 or 100 m.y., even with very low rates of movement, some real damage can be done to Nevada’s landscape.
If we could watch Nevada’s landscape on a 1 m.y. timescale, we would be astounded. The land surface is pulsating and mountains are rising out of the Earth. Some mountains are leaning, tilting, cracking, and bending under immense unseen forces. Some are avalanching into valleys that are sinking, widening, or surging, and other blocks of land are shifting sideways as they rise or fall. Lakes fill valleys and then dry up, only to be refilled. Old seabeds caked with fossils of marine organisms are stood on end and raised to mountaintops. Volcanoes are erupting intermittently around us in flashes of bright light. Entire landscapes are buried beneath lava, rubble, and ash. The volcanoes die and are themselves broken, cracked by faults, and washed away. Some of Nevada’s mountains seem to be melting away as running water is violently cutting away at them and filling the valleys with a sludge of mud, sand, and boulders.
We would not see any living things because they would flash in and out of existence in less than 0.0001 m.y.! All of human civilization is over in 0.01 m.y.
Viewed on a 1 m.y. timescale, Nevada has an impermanent land surface. Ancient marine strata with fossils in mountain ranges show that some of Nevada’s mountains once lay beneath ancient oceans. Mountains rear up from beneath plains and are elevated along faults (Photo 1-2). Some tilt over on their sides and come to lie where valleys once were. The sediments that once filled valley bottoms are broken and uplifted to mountain crests. Old land surfaces, which once supported rivers and growths of forests and prairies, and the hoofbeat of herds of large mammals and the scampering of tiny rodents, are buried by sediment and volcanic debris, uplifted, eroded, and tilted on their sides.
Photo 1-2. View of the west side of the Snake Range, eastern Nevada, elevated along normal faults as much as 7,000 feet above the floor of Spring Valley.
Back now to our human timescale, the here-and-now in Nevada. In this instant in time that we occupy, we cannot see it, but Earth’s surface is moving beneath our feet and around us. Sometimes, we can hear and feel it. Earthquakes are the “sounds” of Earth moving, and the stronger ones give off waves of motion we can feel as shaking. The stronger earthquakes are uncommon. They happen in places like Nevada once or twice a century, and in any one spot once or twice every few thousand years (however, once or twice a century is 10-20,000 times in a million years!). Seismologists can “listen” to very small earthquakes and find that they are happening all the time. The Global Positioning System now allows us to measure the movement in millimeters (0.04 in) per year.
These infinitesimally small movements add up to very large effects over a few million years. Their record is in the rocks and sediments and mountains and valleys of Nevada.
How The Earth Works
Geologists study the rocks and sediments, and also modern processes. They try to understand what happened before, but can see only a little way below the surface of Earth. Geophysicists record earthquakes and measure gravity and other physical properties of Earth to see deeper.
Crust-mantle-lithosphere-asthenosphere. To understand how Earth works here in Nevada, we need to know a bit about...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 20.8.2020 |
|---|---|
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Reisen |
| ISBN-10 | 1-0983-2691-1 / 1098326911 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-0983-2691-3 / 9781098326913 |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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