EARTH SCIENCE (128 images)

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$Zion National Park as viewed from the International Space Station, is located in southwestern Utah, along the western margin of the Colorado Plateau. The park was established in 1919, after roadway improvements in southwestern Utah allowed access to the preceding Mukuntuweap National Monument (1909), located in Zion Canyon. The towering cliffs bounding the North Fork of the Virgin River are formed mainly of tan to light pink Navajo Sandstone, the remains of a sand dune sea that covered the area during the early Mesozoic Era, nearly 200 million years ago. At that point in its history, the Zion region would have looked much like the present-day Sahara Desert...Younger, brown rock that caps the Navajo Sandstone (image right) records how the environment fluctuated between shallow seas and deserts. This high-resolution astronaut photograph illustrates the incised nature of the bedrock in the park. The long linear features are fractures in the rock-joints--caused by tectonic stresses. The mainly north-northwest trending joints channel water runoff, and they appear to be the main factor that determined the present canyon network.$

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$This astronaut photograph highlights Cerro (Spanish for "hill") Culiacan, part of the 50,000 km2 Michoacán-Guanajuato volcanic field of west-central Mexico. The volcanic field contains over 1,400 known vents, with cinder cones, steep, cone-shaped hills, being the dominant landform. Cerro Culiacan however, is a shield volcano, a more gently sloping mound formed by basaltic lavas. Cerro Culiacan most likely formed during the Pleistocene Epoch approximately 10,000 to 2 million years ago. Shield volcanoes in the Michoacán-Guanajuato field tend to have steeper slopes than similar volcanic structures elsewhere (namely Iceland; this is perhaps due to slightly thicker or higher-viscosity lavas), and the 1,100-meter high Cerro Culiacan is no exception...The permeable, highly fractured basalt of Culiacan is an important component of the local hydrology. Precipitation that falls on the slopes of the hill swiftly infiltrates the sediments of the valley floor, providing sufficient moisture to support agriculture (green and brown fields at image center) and, in turn, several small cities such as Jaral del Progreso and El Capulin de la Trinidad (light gray regions with street grids). Precipitation has also incised the slopes of Cerro Culiacan with a radial drainage pattern, extending outwards from the peak in all directions much like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.$

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