Loose_Grip/Pete's photos with the keyword: Texas

I'm not 100% sure where this was taken but it was definitely on the Mobil Oil West Texas Geology Fieldtrip. It looks like a canyon cut into sandstones and shales with maybe flatter lying volcanics on the skyline. It may be part of Cow Heaven anticline in Big Bend National Park. It was certainly taken from the roadside because we didn't hike into the bush at all on this trip. Lots of bare rock walls around these parts! HWW to everyone. Enjoy the day.

Terlingua graveyard in West Texas on the northern edge of Big Bend National Park. The discovery of cinnabar, from which the metal mercury is extracted, in the mid-1880s brought miners to the Terlingua area, creating a city of 2,000 people. The only remnants of the mining days are a ghost town of the Chisos Mining Company and several nearby capped and abandoned mines. The population today is 78! Terlingua features in Wim Wenders' movie Paris, Texas. HFF everyone. Enjoy your Easter weekend.

The Window & the Chisos Mountains looking west from the lodge in the Chisos Basin at the centre of Big Bend National Park out towards the Chihuahua desert. The Chisos Mountains are mainly of igneous origin and were erupted and deposited during the Cenozoic. The oldest rocks in the mountains are volcanic ash, mixtures of ash and clay, sandstone, and conglomerates.

The Permian El Capitan reef complex in the Guadeloupe Mountains on the Texas-New Mexico border. After the flight from Dallas to El Paso we transferred to the tour bus for a geological field trip around West Texas. As an undergraduate I wrote a long essay on carbonate reefs referring to the Guadalupian El Capitan as the prime ancient analogue of modern build-ups. It was a real buzz to actually visit it and hit the rocks with a hammer!

The massive motors of a Saturn rocket outside the Houston Space Centre, home of NASA Mission Control in 1979. This is probably no longer on outdoor display. From Google Earth there is clearly now a very large hanger at the Rocket Park.

The stainless steel coaches of Amtrak's well-named Sunset Limited catch the glint of the West Texas sunset during our stop in El Paso station! I was travelling the 2350 miles from San Francisco and there was still another 24 hours to go before arriving home in New Orleans.