EPOD - a service of USRA
The Earth Science Picture of the Day (EPOD) highlights the diverse processes and phenomena which shape our planet and our lives. EPOD will collect and archive photos, imagery, graphics, and artwork with short explanatory
captions and links exemplifying features within the Earth system. The
community is invited to contribute digital imagery, short captions and
relevant links.
A Conglomeration of Witches and Wonders
February 22, 2021
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Photographer: Ray Boren
Summary Author: Ray Boren
In June 1858, the U.S. Army’s Capt. Albert Tracy descended northern
Utah’s Echo Canyon and emerged at a junction with the Weber
River and Weber Canyon. His party set up camp opposite what they
called Witch Rocks. The stone pillars “jut upwards through the smooth
surface of a rounded hill, and form a cluster,” he wrote in his
journal, “so singularly like figures in kirtles [long skirts] and
steeple-hats or bonnets that they have received the appellation
stated.” As recorded on roadside signs below the site today, Tracy
mistakenly identified the reddish-yellow rocks as being basalt. But
his description of the scene remains apt, as shown in the first
photograph here of The Witches (also known as Witch or Witches
Rocks, as well as Witch or Witches Bluffs), taken on Oct. 4, 2020,
above Interstate 84 between the rural communities of Echo and Henefer.
Geologists now identify the outcrops as features of the Henefer
Formation. Like the nearby Echo Canyon Conglomerate, the formation
is chunky evidence of western North America’s mountain-building
Sevier Orogeny, which occurred during the Late Cretaceous 85-90
million years ago, preceding and somewhat overlapping the Rocky
Mountains’ Laramide Orogeny. Unlike the familiar, fine-grained
red-rock sandstone landscapes of the Colorado Plateau to the south,
these mixed- clastic conglomerates are, according to the
Utah Geological Survey, loaded with quartzite pebbles, cobbles
and even boulders, as well as sandstones and mudstones, carried as
sediments off the Sevier highlands that once rose to the west and
northwest.
The Witches are just a few of the fantastic formations in the
Supplication Hills and in Echo Canyon. Nearby are chimney-like
Sentinel Rock and, up a hilly rill, Temple Rock Amphitheater,
reminiscent of the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon National Park, far
to the southwest. Just to the east along Interstate 80 in Echo Canyon —
also a natural corridor for Native Americans, Mormon and
California-bound pioneers, the overland stage, the Pony Express
and Union Pacific Railroad — are even more wonders. These include
Monument Rock; numerous caves and ledges; a low, tan arch known as
Hanging Rock; and the precipitous, pale-red conglomerate cliffs of
Steamboat Rocks, said to resemble the bows of ships, perhaps lined
up at anchor, shown here in a second photograph, also taken on Oct. 4,
2020.
Photo Details: Top - Camera: NIKON D3200; Exposure Time: 0.0031s
(1/320); Aperture: ƒ/9.0; ISO equivalent: 100; Focal Length (35mm):
120. Bottom - same except: Exposure Time: 0.0020s (1/500); Aperture:
ƒ/11.0; ISO equivalent: 400; Focal Length (35mm): 67.
* The Witches, Utah Coordinates: 40.99606, -111.46099
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* USGS/NPS Geologic Glossary
* USGS Volcano Hazards Program
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