While out in Death Valley with my Field Studies students last March, we encountered an extraordinary fold in Mosaic Canyon.
Check this thing out:
The rock is the Noonday Dolostone (“Noonday Dolomite” in mineralogically biased argot). It may be hard to make out what’s what there… So let me assist with a little annotation, tracing out the bedding:
Wild, eh? That’s an extraordinarily messed up rock. “Goopey” is the adjective that comes to mind to describe how this rock behaved during deformation.
And, being a human with a predilection for pareidolia, I can’t help but see a monstrous creature lurking in the wall:
Happy Friday!
When I take people up Mosaic Canyon to show them this formation, I always splash some water on it which really brings out the detail in the dolomite. When the more folded portions are wet, it looks like wood cut on a bias with the grain showing.