Yosemite National Park has multiple domes throughout the park, but Half Dome is the main attraction to the visitors of Yosemite National Park. Half Dome is a granite dome that was formed without a complete other half of its dome structure. It has undergone changes through its life-time and used to be much larger when there was many glaciers roaming the earth, but was soon smaller in size because of the melting glaciers. Overtime it has become even smaller because of exfoliation; the main cause of exfoliation is climate change, which also is causing glaciers to melt.
Half Dome is 8,842ft high and located on the eastern side of Yosemite Valley (myyosemitepark.com staff, 2014). It was formed “when molten, igneous rock solidified into granite deep within the Earth” then pushed up onto Earth’s surface (myyosemitepark.com staff, 2014). This occurred millions of years and the granite was shaped as it came out from under the earth’s surface and rock chipped away. Granite is able to protrude earth’s crust because “granite plutons found in the upper continental crust seem to be emplaced as low-viscosity… magmas,” in which they come from smaller magma chambers at a quick rate (Petford, Cruden, McCaffrey, Vigneresse 2000). That process has allowed Half Dome, along with the numerous other domes to form at the national
…show more content…
Mount Lyell is 13,114ft high and Maclure is 11,400ft high; they had both receded greatly in the past hundreds of years and are in fear of melting all together due to climate change (myyosemitepark.com staff, 2013). Climate change is a change in Earth's climate from what its typical temperature would be, whether that be hotter and colder or more snow and rain (May 2017). As these glaciers are affected by the drastic increase in warm seasons to freezing in the colder seasons, they are and will continue to freeze and thaw causing them to become smaller and descend towards the
Katmai National Park and Preserve encompasses 3,674,529.68 acres of land. It would fit in the state of Pennsylvania about eight times. Katmai National Park and Preserve is located on the northern tip of the Alaskan Peninsula and is made up of six active volcanoes and the surrounding forests, lakes, and mountains. Maybe the most well known of the volcanoes are Novarupta and Mount Katmai, famous for their eruption in 1912.
Stone Mountain is an igneous intrusion often referred to as a geological pluton. The granite pluton is part of the Piedmont Plateau region of the Appalachian Mountains and was formed along the same geological fault line that created the Blue Ridge Mountains but is not part of the Blue Ridge chain. Northern and Eastern Georgia have relatively frequent seismic activity with ten quakes recorded in 2013. These quakes occurred at an average depth of 9.6 km which make them less obvious and cause less property damage. This same seismic activity created Stone Mountain 300 million years ago during the last stages of the Alleghenian Orogeny when massive tectonic plate shifting allowed a large mass of magma from beneath the earth’s crust to well up . Flow structure markings on the mountain show the stone was formed underground after several eruption pulses failed to break through and then cooled to form, ultimately creating granite mass that rises 825 feet above ground, extends 9 miles underground and has a circumference of 5 miles at its base, making it the largest exposed dome in the world . Rising 1683 feet above sea level the summit of the dome is bare stone with rock pools and an unobstructed view that extends to Kennesaw Mountain, Amicacola Falls and Mt. Yonah state parks, including a breathtaking view of the Atlanta Skyline.
Petrified Forest National Park is located in the Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona taking up 93,532.57 acres of its land. Before the national park was established, it was founded as a National Monument on December 8, 1906 when President Theodore Roosevelt signed the proclamation. Years later, the Congress passed a bill and established it as a national park on December 9, 1962. Centuries before Petrified Forest National Park was preserved as a national park, the land was preoccupied by the Paleo people. At the onset of the end of the last Ice Age, hunter-gatherers, people who lived by hunting game and only gathering edible plants, roamed the Southwest from 13,500 to 8000 B.C. Although these people enjoy meals consisting of meat and vegetables, they don’t raise livestock and grow crops. During these years of hunting and gathering, the region was cooler with a grassland environment, and people gathered wild plants for food and hunted bison and other large herd of animals. The types of bison these people hunted are now extinct. Nomads used a device called an atlatl to throw their weapons, such as spears and darts, to hunt. By 4000 B.C., during the archaic culture, the climate had changed and became similar to the one of the present. This period of hunting, gathering, and farming had lasted from 8000 to 500 B.C. In contrast to the time of the Paleo people, the climate was warmer, people extended their access to different types of food, and people began to farm and grow their crops. Due to the extinction of animals of the past, people had to expand their source of food, and they had to include many different species of plants and animals into their meals. Two hundred twenty-five million years ago, trees fell and were washe...
Zig-zag, back and forth, down, down, down, Jonathon, Dad, and I went into a mysterious new world. Now that I have gone into this hot, dry canyon surrounded by monstrous hoodoos, I have seen what it is really like to leave the small town of Seymour, and emerge into the greatness of this world. I have now seen several other National Parks on one of the most renowned places on earth for mysterious creations, the Colorado Plateau. Of all the beautiful places on it, even the Grand Canyon, I have found my favorite one. Bryce Canyon National Park. I thought it was amazing, because it was the most diverse to anything I have ever seen before. We hiked down into it and I felt like I was surrounded by skyscrapers. We trekked around a little, but we didn’t
Lassen Peak has the highest known winter snowfall amounts in California. There is an average annual snowfall of 660 in, and in some years, more than 1,000 inches of snowfall at its base altitude of 8,250 feet at Lake Helen.
Yosemite and its history, young to old the story of an area of land that is doomed to be mined, forcibly stripped naked of its natural resources. In 1864 Yosemite land grant was signed into act by president Abraham Lincoln, the first area of land set aside for preservation and protection. Yosemite being a very important historical plot of land, some time ago president Theodore Roosevelt visited the park managing to disappear from the secret service with John Muir. Through the years the contrast of ideas between the industrialists and the preservationists have clashed, Yosemite’s history both interesting and mysterious but more importantly inevitable .
Mount Rainier is a volcano that is located in the Cascade Range in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington. This volcano is 14,411 feet (4,392 meters) in its elevation. This is the highest mountain in Washington. This volcano is in the same mountain range as Mount Adams, Mount Baker, Mount St. Helens and Glacier Peak. It is known as a stratovolcano which is a large, steep volcano built up of alternating layers of lava and ash or cinders. This volcano is an active volcano and the last time it erupted was in 1894. The largest eruption this volcano has had was 2200 years ago. It has been recorded that the areas has had a lot of small high-frequency earthquakes. Some of them occur daily. According to geologist the cause of this is hot fluids moving inside the mountain. It is composed of two overlapping volcano crater that are 1000 ft. around. This volcano has three different summits; they are Columbia Crest, Point Success and Liberty cap, the highest which is 14,411 feet and the lowest which is 14,112 feet. It lies on the Juan de Fuca Plate. This is a divergent boundary. It was formed by the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate and the North American Plate. This volcano also has lahars which are large mudflows that happen in the deposits of sediments that surrounds volcanoes; they can be hot or cold. This volcano includes but not limited to the rock andesite.
The Grand Canyon is one of the most amazing natural wonders in the world. It was originally deposited sediment that was lithofied, and turned into sedimentary rock. The rock was then carved out by hydraulic processes (Warneke). These processes, all combined, took almost three to six million years to form the Grand Canyon. Continued erosion by wind and rain in the present time continues to shift what the canyon looks like, and make it different as time goes on ("Grand Canyon Facts").
Hey we should go to Catalina Island I heard it is fantastic! Hey have you wonder what snorkling is like or kayaking well Catalina is the place to go. A little history about Catalina is major investors that have try to turn it into a hotel and resort paradise but it was turned down by Mr.wrigley. One place on the island I prefer to go to camp to is camp emerald bay you can do many things there. The Island is still a great place to go anywhere and is amazing and if you go to emerald bay go to avalon after the camp it is still great with many hotel for you to stay . Let me tell you about more things you can do in emerald bay.
Life is colorful and adventurous, especially if you belong to the military life style. Belonging to the military community for nearly two decades has given me a different outlook on each place we end up. Outdoor enthusiasts, like most military families are, make Colorado Springs a desirable duty stationed. The perfect location Colorado Springs has. The weather offers many clear, beautiful days, allowing Colorado Springs to be a playground to enjoy most of the year round. Many points of interest and vacation sights that can be done in or around Colorado Springs make it a favorite in the military community.
Commissioned by the Justinian Emperor and constructed by around 10,000 workers, the building was magnificent. Its construction was first defied by building four columns each and then topped them with four arches. Then spaces left between the arches were filled with masonry and aided in creating the curved triangular shapes known as the pendentives, which along with the arches formed a strong base for the dome. The dome was made-up of 40 equally spaced ribs. The Engineers of the Hagia Sophia Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus the Elder designed the structure and saw it built in a record time of 5 years, 10 months and 4 days. The massive diameter of 102 feet made of thick concrete dome made it arise the similarities to that of the Roman Pantheon (Matthews, Roy and Platt pg.
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park The Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is about 30 miles southwest of Hilo. It is on the big island of Hawaii. This park is the home of Kilauea Volcano. Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes on Earth.
Like most of the other volcanoes in the Cascade Range, St. Helens is a great cone of rubble, consisting of lava rock interlayered with ash, pumice and other deposits. Volcanic cones of this internal structure are called composite cones or stratovolcanoes. Mount St. Helens includes layers of basalt and andesite through which several domes of dacite lava have erupted. The largest of the dacite domes formed the previous summit; another formed Goat Rocks dome on the northern flank. These were destroyed in St. Helens' 1980 eruption.
As the crust cracks, blocks of rock rise or fall, forming fault-block mountains. Examples of these mountains are the Sierra Nevada in California and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming. Dome mountains are formed by the same kind of molten rock that forms volcanic mountains. As magma comes up in a crack in the Earth’s crust, it does not come to the surface, but the molten rock pushes the ground up into a dome. Examples include Yosemite’s Half Dome, the Adirondacks in New York, and the Black Hills in South Dakota.
In our past readings, we read about the ancient pyramids of Egyptians and they really grabbed my interest and attention when it came to writing this paper. I have decided to research more into the Great Pyramids and try to discuss some of the differences and similarities between the pyramids of ancient Egypt and Mayan. I also want to discuss the first pharaoh to receive a pyramid. While also discussing more into depth of the spiritual significance of the pyramids and some of their ideas behind why the pyramids are designed like they are. I hope to bring more knowledge between the two groups and the amazing ancient pyramids.