14th
February
2009
Where on (Google) Earth #162?
posted in Geology, Google Earth, Where on (Google) Earth? |I loved winning the first Taiwanese WoGE locality because it offers me the opportunity to offer up a special Valentines Day WoGE.
Not only is this a fitting locality for the day, but it also qualifies as one of the entries on the Geologist’s 100 Places to Visit list. Needless to say, in identifying the locality (latitude and longitude will do the job there) I expect a lovingly crafted explanation of the geology of the feature at the heart of this challenge. As always, the winner gets a date with destiny, selecting the location of WoGE #163.
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No Schott Rule, but I’d like to suggest that recent winners give it maybe six hours (Post time: 11:50am CST) so that the newbies have a chance to fall in love with WoGE.
OK, if nobody wants to win this, I’ll take it:
44.665N-109.120W: Heart Mountain in the middle of Bighorn Basin in Wyoming. It consists of Ordovician to Mississippian limestones and dolomites resting atop of the Eocene Willwood Formation. It is interpreted (still debated?) as the remnant of a strange, apparently the largest ever, subaerial rockslide, probably triggered by the Absaroka Range volcanism at the end of the Laramide Orogeny, in which giant pieces of a Paleozoic carbonate platform gravitationally slid tens of kilometers southeastwards at a quite incredible speed: >100 miles/hour!
Really inspired post, Ron, Valentine’s Day worthy, indeed
Ah, well… An obvious Valentine’s Day mountain!
WoGE#163 is now up. Good luck!