2011
So taken by this basin’s spectacular views at Santa Fe’s southern doorstep, I find myself returning again and again.
An upwelling of the Earth’s mantle thirty million years ago caused a pair of parallel fault zones, 40 miles apart, to cut north-south through New Mexico from the San Juan Mountains in south central Colorado to the southwestern tip of Texas; 8-10 million years later, this slice of the Earth’s crust sank as much as 5 miles, creating the Rio Grande Rift, which in turn extended a network of fault patterns that pulled apart the Earth’s crust to the breaking point. From the Rio Grande Rift west to the Sierras, these faults were the genesis of the southwest’s predominate Basin & Range topography: fallen crustal blocks created basins; uplifted blocks became mountain ranges.
Low-angled high-desert light with some cloud cover makes it possible to emphasize the differing characters of these surrounding mountains
To view more images of Galisteo Basin, see Galisteo Basin I and Galisteo Basin III
