Textures and tectonics
Textures and Tectonics. The Atacama Desert and the Altiplano lies just beyond the reach of the wet pacific air. The coastal ranges seem to squeeze out ever last drop of water. Leaving the Atacama Desert and the Altiplano to almost perceptibly gasp for liquid. The Nazca plate is drifting, diving, and driving into the South American coast. The origins of orogeny, lifting folding and pushing the altiplano upwards. Diving deep below to as the engine of plate tectonics superheats causing magma to rise up and form the backbone of the Andes, providing the signature volcanic chain of peaks punctuating the sky at over 5800 meters (19,000 feet). Volcanoes that still spew andesitic flows across the plateau. Volcanoes that were revered by the Inca’s to the mistaken belief that human sacrifices had to be made at their summits.
Against this backdrop of barren land, with names evoking the extraterrestrial site, (Valley of the moon, Mars Valley) dust devils swirl as a precursor to heat and unrelenting winds. Winds with such force that they carve aeolian scars into the rock and build massive dunes of sand. The fluvial nature of the wind creates rhythmic ripples in the sand. Sand whose grains are of such size that they mimic those found in rivers.
Harshness that seems to weather wrinkles in everything it touches. Cactus puckered to retain every drop of water, the polygons and stress cracks in the evaporites of salt beds. The rills and gullies of the rock which create sharp contrasts to the smoothness of sand.
Despite its paucity of moisture water finds its way into the panorama of the Altiplano. Sometimes to cut canyons in the ground, sometimes percolating deep underground meeting the even hotter subterranean rocks to boil upward forming geyser fountains. The boiling water dissolving the minerals only to redeposit it as travertine shelves and miniature turrets along the edges of the crystalline clear pools.
Textures and tectonics. Cross hatchings of an artist, subtle strokes of a brush. A natural statement of beauty contrasted against the moisture free landscape and dark blue skies. Splashes of color lifted high above by the tectonic dynamics of earth.
Read MoreAgainst this backdrop of barren land, with names evoking the extraterrestrial site, (Valley of the moon, Mars Valley) dust devils swirl as a precursor to heat and unrelenting winds. Winds with such force that they carve aeolian scars into the rock and build massive dunes of sand. The fluvial nature of the wind creates rhythmic ripples in the sand. Sand whose grains are of such size that they mimic those found in rivers.
Harshness that seems to weather wrinkles in everything it touches. Cactus puckered to retain every drop of water, the polygons and stress cracks in the evaporites of salt beds. The rills and gullies of the rock which create sharp contrasts to the smoothness of sand.
Despite its paucity of moisture water finds its way into the panorama of the Altiplano. Sometimes to cut canyons in the ground, sometimes percolating deep underground meeting the even hotter subterranean rocks to boil upward forming geyser fountains. The boiling water dissolving the minerals only to redeposit it as travertine shelves and miniature turrets along the edges of the crystalline clear pools.
Textures and tectonics. Cross hatchings of an artist, subtle strokes of a brush. A natural statement of beauty contrasted against the moisture free landscape and dark blue skies. Splashes of color lifted high above by the tectonic dynamics of earth.
