Grand Falls -- a question of scale

One of my last posts had a head-on view of the Grand Falls of the Little Colorado. OK so it looks like it could be the size of an irrigation ditch. If you really doubted how large these falls are, look very carefully in the lower left hand corner of the above picture. It helps if you click on the picture so you can see it full size. Down in the corner area are two orange round objects. Those are people with helmets. That's how big this waterfall is. Really! If you still don't believe me, look carefully at the junk floating in the river below the falls, on the left side of the floating mess there is a tire.

This waterfall is not on most maps of Arizona, but there are a few of the state highway maps that show the location. If you look at the map, go just to the northeast of Flagstaff and you will see where the Little Colorado River turns sharply north, that is the location of the waterfall. The weather is hot in the summer and very cold in the winter. The wind blows almost every day of the year. Don't plan on seeing any water except at those rare times when the river is running and the snow is melting in the mountains.

The Little Colorado River

This is a typical view of the Little Colorado River when it is nearly flooding. This chocolate brown river winds its way across the Colorado Plateau. In this area of the Plateau, just at the west edge of the Navajo Indian Reservation, the river runs through an area almost devoid of trees. The Little Colorado is really three rivers, the first is a clear sparkling snow fed stream in the high White Mountains of Arizona. The second is this muddy, usually almost dry, desert river. The third and last is the deep canyon cut down to the level of the Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. In the bottom of the canyon the river is bright blue, dyed by the minerals that line its banks.

There are no major dams on the river, although there are a few smaller dams that produce small lakes. The largest lake along the river is the Lyman Reservoir about 15 miles south of the Apache County seat, St. Johns.

If it had any water, which it usually doesn't, the Little Colorado River would rank as one of the more important rivers in the United States. It is 315 miles long and has a drainage area of about 25,000 square miles. The average flow is about 400 cubic feet per second (cfs). To compare, there are thousands of streams in the U.S. that have a higher average flow, not to even mention rivers. Unpredictably, it can become a raging torrent of over 120,000 cfs. Wikipedia.

The Grand Falls of the Little Colorado River

The Grand Falls of the Little Colorado is 185 feet tall. To compare, Niagara Falls is 167 feet in height. OK, so there is a big difference in the amount of water, especially in dry times of the year, but think about this huge waterfall at the end of a truck only dirt road, out in Navajo Indian Reservation. Despite the huge size and its chocolate brown water, it is almost totally ignored by everyone, especially the Indians who own the land. There is not so much as a sign on the nearest highway marking the road. As is usual, the wind blows 360 days out of the year and there is not a restroom (or even a tree) for miles in any direction. People do not go there to get married (I suppose it could happen, almost anything can), no one sells tee shirts, no one has a boat concession for rides into the mist, there are no high rise hotels overlooking gorge. Nothing but wind, red dirt and rock and water.

Sacred Datura

These stunning flowers have the unusual name of Sacred Datura, more commonly known as prickly burr, angel's trumpet, desert thornapple or jimsonweed. Here is the classification from the USDA:

Kingdom	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	Asteridae
Order	Solanales
Family	Solanaceae – Potato family
Genus	Datura L. – jimsonweed
Species	Datura inoxia Mill. – pricklyburr

They are highly visible along many highways in northern Arizona during the spring and summer months. Like many other plants, they take advantage of the extra water that comes from being next to the asphalt runoff. The plants are highly toxic and I have always known that they were dangerous to cattle. Quoting from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, "Extracts from this plant and its relatives are narcotic and, when improperly prepared, lethal. The narcotic properties of species have been known since before recorded history. They once figured importantly in religious ceremonies of southwestern Indians." I always guessed that jimsonweed must have had a really good PR company to get a name change to sacred datura.

This really is Arizona

I feel sorry for all those people who associate Arizona with dry, sandy wastes. Although it is hot in the summer, the rest of the year is usually delightful and in the Spring, spectacular. The picture above was taken in 2008 on a short loop drive in the east valley, out the Bush Highway and around by Saguaro Lake and back to the Beeline Highway. I just drove up to Globe yesterday and the desert is carpeted with flowers and scenes like the one above are common all along the lower desert roads. Temperatures are in the mid-70s and low 80s and the nights are cool and comfortable. The colors are magnificent and the drive to Globe, if it had been for pleasure rather than business, would have completely delightful.

Spring Wildflowers in the Arizona Desert 2010

Spring in the desert really starts in October of the year before. If there is better than average rain during the Fall and Winter, the desert is carpeted with flowers. The blooms last, at most a week or two in their most colorful, but can last longer if it does not get too hot, too soon. The picture above shows brittlebush in bloom. The desert also has lupine, mallow, chicory, and chuparosa. Sometimes there are desert marigolds. Other varieties that bloom are Miner's Lettuce, Wallflower, Cream Cups and Owl's Clover. For a daily report, go to DesertUSA.com.

The Invasion of the Giant Midwesterners

What can you say about this couple waiting to cross the street in downtown Mesa, Arizona? They appeared to have been standing there for quite some time, trying to make up their minds which way to go.

Arizona's Paleontology Law

From the Bureau of Land Management:

On March 30, 2009, a mandate for Paleontological Resources Preservation became law when President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009. The law requires the Secretaries of the United States Department of Interior and Agriculture to manage and protect paleontological resources on Federal land using scientific principles and expertise. The PRPA includes specific provisions addressing management of these resources by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service (NPS), the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Citation: Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009, Paleontological Resources Preservation (OPLA-PRP) P.L. 111-11, Title VI, Subtitle D, Sections 6301-6312, 123 Stat. 1172, 16 U.S.C. 470aaa

Quick facts about the new law...

• Paleontological Resource Preservation became law on March 30, 2009 as part of the Omnibus Public Lands Act of 2009.

• Congress recognizes the value of paleontological resources as a natural legacy and an irreplaceable part of America’s heritage by passing the OPLA-PRP.

• On the whole, the OPLA-PRP will not significantly change the way the BLM manages paleontological resources on public lands.

• OPLA-PRP ensures that the public may continue to collect a reasonable amount of common invertebrate and plant fossils on public land without a permit. OPLA-PRP does not change BLM’s long-standing policy prohibiting the bartering or selling of casually collected fossils.

• You still need a permit to conduct scientific inquiry and collect significant paleontological resources from public lands, including vertebrate fossils.

• Any paleontological resources collected under permit from public lands remain U.S. Government property and must be curated in an approved curation facility where they will be available for scientific research and public education.

• OPLA-PRP includes civil penalties for illegal theft and vandalism of paleontological resources from public lands, and provides stiffer penalties for criminal theft and vandalism.

• OPLA-PRP provides the BLM with the authority to offer rewards to the public who help BLM prosecute illegal activities on public lands.

• Under OPLA-PRP, the BLM will establish programs that increase public awareness about the significance of paleontological resources.

• Information about the nature and specific location of paleontological resources on public lands are confidential and not subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve - wilderness in the city

Visible near the center of the above photo is Tom's Thumb, a prominent landmark in the Scottsdale's McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Located along the eastern border of Scottsdale, this 14,000 acre park contains hiking trails, rock climbing areas and a huge variety of plants and animals. Early settlers in the Salt River Valley had little appreciation for the desert, considering all of the unihabited areas to be "wasteland." Preservation of these former wastelands has almost come too little and too late. There are only a few areas around the Salt River Valley where the natural Sonoran desert is still in its original condition. Although the McDowell Sonoran Preserve is crossed by mining roads, now long abandoned, it is still a good example of how the desert looked in earlier, less settled times.

As you can see from the photo, the "wilderness" around the greater Phoenix area directly abuts the development. The wilderness itself is its own transitional area. You step directly from paved subdivision roads into the designated wilderness park. Although it may not appear to be either rugged or very steep in the photo, the Tom's Thumb butte is at 3,925 above sea level. It is not unusual for the snow level to descend to about 4000 feet, making the McDowell Mountains on of the few places to see snow on cold winter's days after a storm.

Some of the most impressive photographs ever

Home from the hunt, Taos.

Pedro Begay, Navajo.



So Hache, Navajo.


Pesothlanny, medicine chief, Navaho.

All of these photos and a few more are from the New York Public Library, NYPL Digital Gallery. The photographer was Carl Moon (1878 - 1948) and the photos are gelatin silver prints. They were originally copyrighted by Fred Harvey.

Quoting from a Website by Tom Driebe:

Carl Moon was born in Wilmington, Ohio, he became a photographer, painter, and illustrator who moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico as a young man where he operated a photography studio.

In 1907, he moved into the Grand Canyon headquarters of Fred Harvey to manage Harvey's art business. He studied landscape painting with visiting artists Louis Akin, Thomas Moran, and Frank Sauerwein, and he also took many photographs and films of Pueblo Indians. In 1911, he married artist Grace Purdie and settled in Pasadena. He focused on landscape painting and illustrating children's stories co-authored with his wife. He was a member of The Cartoonist Club and the Pasadena Art Association. Photographing Native Americans in their natural state was the principal aim of Carl E. Moon. He tried to show the Indian as he lived before civilization hampered his freedom, warped his views of life and changed his picturesque customs and mode of dress.

Chockstones

Long before rock climbers appropriated this term for their climbing aids, nature placed its own chockstones by gravity's effect on weathering rock. The highly weathered granite in Arizona provides a wealth of chockstones, some intricately pieced together like giant puzzles. Almost every crevice and crack in the rocks contain chockstones both large and small. Similar rounded rocks stretch diagonally across the state from the southeast corner towards the northwest. In almost any trip traveling from the south to the north along Arizona's highways and roads, you can spot this band of similar looking rocks. The outcrops are not always granite, some are dacite and other types of rocks of volcanic origin, but the weathering processes are the same and the formations appear similar.

Some of the parts of the band of rocks are pretty spectacular, such as those in Queen Creek Canyon just north of the mining town of Superior, Arizona. At least one of the areas in southeast Arizona has been made a national Monument, Chiricahua National Monument.

I-70 Glenwood Canyon Rockfall

Once again, this isn't exactly Arizona and I wasn't walking at the time, but these pictures show what happens when gravity, road engineering, and a lot of rain and snow get together. In keeping with our Salt River road engineering, here are the pictures of the same kind of damage in Colorado. (Pictures from the Colorado Department of Transportation)

I like lichen

The green and sort-of yellowish stuff in the picture is lichen. Lichens are composite organisms consisting of a symbiotic association of a fungus (the mycobiont) with a photosynthetic partner (the photobiont or phycobiont), usually either a green alga (commonly Trebouxia) or cyanobacterium (commonly Nostoc). Since they grow on rocks in the deserts of Arizona, you can guess that they can withstand extreme heat, cold and dryness. Rock temperatures in the desert can be over 150 degrees which we commonly believe could cook eggs, but this extreme heat doesn't seem to bother lichen at all.

Quoting from Wikipedia, "The algal or cyanobacterial cells are photosynthetic, and as in plants they reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide into organic carbon sugars to feed both symbionts. Both partners gain water and mineral nutrients mainly from the atmosphere, through rain and dust. The fungal partner protects the alga by retaining water, serving as a larger capture area for mineral nutrients and, in some cases, provides minerals obtained from the substrate. If a cyanobacterium is present, as a primary partner or another symbiont in addition to green alga as in certain tripartite lichens, they can fix atmospheric nitrogen, complementing the activities of the green alga."

The lichen appear in a lot of my photographs of the deserts. OK, guess what? People eat lichen. Again from Wikipedia,

Lichens are eaten by many different cultures across the world. Although some lichens are only eaten in times of famine, others are a staple food or even a delicacy. Two obstacles are often encountered when eating lichens: lichen polysaccharides are generally indigestible to humans, and lichens usually contain mildly toxic secondary compounds that should be removed before eating. Very few lichens are poisonous, but those high in vulpinic acid or usnic acid are toxic.^[45] Most poisonous lichens are yellow.

In the past Iceland moss (Cetraria islandica) was an important human food in northern Europe, and was cooked as a bread, porridge, pudding, soup, or salad. Wila (Bryoria fremontii) was an important food in parts of North America, where it was usually pitcooked. Northern peoples in North America and Siberia traditionally eat the partially digested reindeer lichen (Cladina spp.) after they remove it from the rumen of caribou or reindeer that have been killed. Rock tripe (Umbilicaria spp. and Lasalia spp.) is a lichen that has frequently been used as an emergency food in North America, and one species, Umbilicaria esculenta, is used in a variety of traditional Korean and Japanese foods."

The Ubiquitous Palo Verde

OK so it isn't a Giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum but it is the State Tree of Arizona. There are three different species of palo verde native to Arizona, the Jerusalem thorn Parkinsonia aculeata ; the blue palo verde Parkinsonia florida (shown above) and the yellow palo verde Parkinsonia microphylla. The classification of the tree is as follows from the USDA:

Kingdom	Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision	Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division	Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class	Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass	Rosidae
Order	Fabales
Family	Fabaceae – Pea family
Genus	Parkinsonia L. – paloverde

Because of its brilliant yellow blossoms in the spring, the palo verde is one of my favorite trees. Quoting from The United States National Arboretum:

The name “palo verde” means “green branch.” The trees have thin green bark on their trunks and branches. During dry times, which may be most of the year, the tree will shed its delicate leaves to conserve moisture. The plant can continue to photosynthesize through the chlorophyll in its trunk and branches. Arizona’s palo verde is a true desert dweller, and it frequently grows in the company of the saguaro cactus (Carnegia gigantea), which is Arizona’s state flower. The palo verde often serves as a “nurse plant” for saguaro cacti -- the cactus seedlings require a shaded, moist environment in their first few years of growth. The palo verde is an attractive small tree increasingly used as a street tree in the desert southwest. In spring the branches are covered with bright yellow flowers, and the green trunk adds interest through the rest of the year. Three similar palo verde species are native in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona. There is also a hybrid palo verde, Parkinsonia ‘Desert Museum’ possessing favorable characteristics for landscaping use. The legislation designating Arizona’s state tree does not select a particular species of palo verde, but only specifies the genus Cercidium. Studies of the North American Cercidium showed that our palo verde species belong in the same group as the African Parkinsonia. This group of plants has been reclassified as Parkinsonia, since this was the earlier name in use.

Martian landforms

Martian landforms shaped by winds, water, lava flow, seasonal icing and other forces are the topic of a special issue on Icarus. The January special issue of Icarus offers 21 papers on results from the Univ. of Arizona-managed HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. HiRISE is the University of Arizona's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment from the Department of Planetary Sciences camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. HiRISE is the largest camera ever to leave Earth orbit, has opened a new chapter in the exploration of Mars. Its ability to resolve 1-m-scale objects – in color and 3 dimensions – anywhere on the surface of Mars is superior to that of unclassified orbital remote sensing data available to terrestrial geologists.

Scottsdale Panorama

Scottsdale is one of the best know cities surrounding Phoenix, Arizona in the Salt River Valley. Although the population of the city is only about 244,000 residents, its influence far out shadows its relatively small size. In addition, its real estate, even despite the downturn in the economy, is among the most expensive in the U.S.

The above panorama was taken from the Pinnacle Peak trail, looking towards the west. Contrary to most promotional shots of Scottsdale, the above photo is not enhanced, the haze and the color are about what you would expect to see. The area shown in the picture is considered to be north Scottsdale and is filled with very expensive subdivisions, many with view lots. When I was a teenager, I lived just west of the Scottsdale City limits in Phoenix. Since we lived just a block or so from the border between the cities, we considered ourselves part of Scottsdale. At that time, the City did not extend much north of Shea Boulevard. To the East, is the Salt River Indian Reservation, which marks most of the eastern boundary of Scottsdale then, as well as now. In those days, most of the roads across the Reservation were unpaved. Scottsdale had a very small business district, centered around the intersection of Main and Scottsdale Road. Although a few of the original businesses are still open, the area around downtown Scottsdale has grown considerably and many of the old landmarks are long gone.

Lakes and Golf Courses in the Desert

It is almost a cliche, artificial lakes and golf courses in the desert. The developers tout them as icons of the outdoor leisure lifestyle, but they are vilified by the conservationists as wasteful and destructive of the environment. Which are they? In some areas, they have both been outlawed. In Tucson, Arizona water conservation has reached the level of a fanatical movement. In Scottsdale, the landscaping varies from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some have strictly enforced natural desert landscaping, in others, failing to maintain your lawn could cost you a homeowners association fine in the hundreds of dollars. However, the reality of water usage is often lost in the controversy. Here is a quote from Water, Growth and the Future of Agriculture by Grady Gammage, Jr. of the Morrison Institute and Gammage & Burnham.

A section of housing requires on average no more and often less water than the same section of land used to grow crops. So as we convert land to residential use, we use less water, and we explain this to citizens to calm their fears.

To give another perspective see this article in The Arizona Republic for January 3, 2005, "Farms swallowing most of Arizona's water" by Shaun McKinnon:

In an average year, Arizonans go through about 7.25 million acre-feet, or nearly 2.4 trillion gallons. Put a different way, that amount of water could support a residential population of nearly 30 million people.

Except it doesn't. It's supporting a population of 5.7 million - and a lot of farms, which use about 68 percent of the state's water.

Agriculture has always used the largest share of Arizona's water, producing cotton, citrus, lettuce, alfalfa and other products that add up to a $2.4 billion-a-year-industry. Farmers will argue that they have become more efficient and probably pay better attention to water use than the average homeowner.

The article goes on to note that "In Greater Phoenix, farms now use about 46 percent of the supply, down from two-thirds or more just 30 years ago. Industry - mostly power plants, sand and gravel operations, and golf courses - uses about 6 percent. The rest is residential, business and government - everything from Arizona State University's 50,000-student Tempe campus to your back yard."

Weathered Granite

These boulders at Pinnacle Peak near Scottsdale, Arizona, are a result of spheroidal weathering. Granitic rocks develop joints in several directions which have the tendency to break into blocks. Weathering caused by wind erosion, mechanical breakdown from freeze/thaw cycles and the chemical weathering of the rocks, round the boulders even more thus creating this landform common in the Arizona desert areas. These rocks are primarily known as middle Proterozoic granitic and include granodiorite, tonalite, quartz diorite, diorite, and gabbro. These rocks commonly are characterized by steep, northeast-striking foliation. See Royse, Chester F., Michael F. Sheridan, and H. Wesley Peirce. Geologic Guidebook. 4, Highways of Arizona, Arizona Highways 87, 88 and 188. Tucson: University of Arizona, 1971. See also, Mineral Resources On-Line Spatial Data.

This type of granitic rock is widely distributed in Arizona with outcrops in 11 of the counties.

I have always been interested in these granitic rocks as rocks. At first, because of the unusual forms and later, as I learned more about the geology, I became more interested in how they fit into the geological structure of the landforms.

Catastrophic damage from the Chilean Earthquake

Here is a 360 Degree view of some of the damage in Chile:


Earthquake Chile 2010 A in Santiago

Road Engineering Arizona Style

There is an old Spanish saying, translated into English it says, "What man proposes, God disposes." Some definitions are in order: (from the USGS)

cubic feet per second (cfs)--a rate of the flow, in streams and rivers, for example. It is equal to a volume of water one foot high and one foot wide flowing a distance of one foot in one second. One "cfs" is equal to 7.48 gallons of water flowing each second. As an example, if your car's gas tank is 2 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot (2 cubic feet), then gas flowing at a rate of 1 cubic foot/second would fill the tank in two seconds.

discharge--the volume of water that passes a given location within a given period of time. Usually expressed in cubic feet per second.

flood--An overflow of water onto lands that are used or usable by man and not normally covered by water. Floods have two essential characteristics: The inundation of land is temporary; and the land is adjacent to and inundated by overflow from a river, stream, lake, or ocean.

flood, 100-year--A 100-year flood does not refer to a flood that occurs once every 100 years, but to a flood level with a 1 percent chance of being equaled or exceeded in any given year.

flood plain--a strip of relatively flat and normally dry land alongside a stream, river, or lake that is covered by water during a flood.

flood stage--The elevation at which overflow of the natural banks of a stream or body of water begins in the reach or area in which the elevation is measured.

peak flow--the maximum instantaneous discharge of a stream or river at a given location. It usually occurs at or near the time of maximum stage.

The picture above shows what happens to roads in the Salt River Valley when the road builders disregard all of the above definitions.

This is not what the Salt River looked like before the dams were built

With the construction of four large dams on the Salt River and the construction of the Granite Reef Diversion dam that sent the last of the water down the canals, the Salt River through the Salt River Valley has essentially been dry. Historically, the river was lined with brush and cottonwood trees. Most of the vegetation along the Salt River through the Salt River Valley communities has died. There are a few area where runoff from other sources has allowed a significant amount of vegetation to survive, but most of the inhabitants of the city know the river as only a dry bed, crossed by roads and some bridges. Every few years, the reservoirs fill and water starts down the river. This photo was taken in February of 2010 when the reservoirs were nearly at capacity and there was still enough water left over after diversions into the canals had taken as much water as possible.

The view is looking east towards Granite Reef Dam, which cannot be seen. The houses in the background are in East Mesa, the mountain with the prominent white stripe is Usury Mountain, further away and to the south, is the famous front face of the Superstition Mountains, part of which is known as the Flat Iron.

Some of the other prominent features visible in the photo include the Red Mountain Freeway, visible in the near distance just past the river.