| Garden of
the Gods is located in Colorado Springs, Co along the base of Pike's Peak,
which is the snow-capped mountain seen in the background in the above picture.
The near vertical crust that blocks the view of lower Pike's Peak is a red
sandstone of the Lyons Fm., which is dated in the
Permian period. Sands from the eroded Ancestral Rocky Mts are what hardened into the Lyons Fm.
Originally the crust was a solid, uplifted block, but the artist, erosion, has worked the rocks into giant pinnacles and fingers of beauty, some of which stand to
heights of up to 500 (528) feet. In early Pennsylvanian (320 ma) there was an Orogenic event that was
responsible for the uplift of the Colorado and Oklahoma mountain ranges. Due to tectonics, Africa moved into the Appalachian mt belt in what is called the
Alleghenian Orogeny. Obviously there were severe
effects in the east, but there were also deepseated
forces that brought crust from underneath the earth's
surface to higher places. Pike's Peak is an example
of some of the uplifted material. The mountain is
composed of volcanic rocks that were emplaced
(deep below the surface) as a batholith, but were
forced upward during the Alleghanian Orogeny,
dragging the sedimentary rocks that rested above
it into the shape of a great dome. But nature tends
to hold a grudge against objects that are high in
the air. Erosion eventually wore away the overlying
sedimentary rocks, exposing the volcanic core and
leaving the Lyons Fm. still standing to where they
are today. |
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