Power of oxidization

Red rock of red rock canyon

There’s nothing to give you a sense of scale here (this is a wide view), except if you can see whitish streaks or threads just left of the red rock in the draw to the left. Those streaks are foot-trails. Human hiking trails.

The eye candy of Las Vegas I go for the most is west of town, at Red Rock Canyon in the Mojave Desert. They say canyon, but to me it’s more walls of rock and high outwash plains. The reddest formation meets the gravel of the desert creating a compelling visual boundary.

The red color of the Aztec Sandstone comes from oxidization of iron oxide components; whitish layers either didn’t originally have the iron oxide, or it has leached away.

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