4 April 2010

Easter egg

Posted by Callan Bentley

Searching through my photo archives this morning for something suitably “Eastery”… something in pastel colors, perhaps? … a petrified lagomorph? … how about an egg, or something egg-shaped?

This is as close as I got:

owens6_01

This is in the Owens Valley of eastern California, showing a boulder of the Mesozoic Sierra Nevada Batholith bearing a faulted xenolith. I love outcrops like this, with a combination of primary structures (like the xenolith) and secondary structures (like the fault). And the fault surface appeared to have hosted some fluid flow, encouraging epidotization (hydrous metamorphism) along its surface. How appropriate, considering both the “cracked egg” implication of the round xenolith and the pastel tones of the green epidote.

I’ll annotate it up for you, because I know you love it when I do that:

owens6_015

Happy Easter, folks. Focus on the bunnies and candy, and not the zombies.