Travertine in Romero Canyon? The first Travertine I paid attention to was on the Colorado River during a river trip
While hiking this Canyon on the way in we noticed the smell of Sulfur, so somewhere under all this there's a Hot Springs bubbling along maybe never making it to the surface. We talked with a lot of hikers that haven't seen water back here in years, there's lot of it today!
If you've looked at some of the rocks on a few of these slides along the trail, you've noticed the marine fossils.
As these rocks are marine, they are likely cemented together with calcium carbonate (see the Earthcache Sediments and Faults 2 to see how this all works)
When you look at this feature on the rock that the water flows over or would flow over depending on when you visit. You'll see it's not like the rock you see in the Canyon. This example has little voids and some surface area that looks like you would see in a cave way below the surface.
This rock type is called "Travertine", it's redeposited calcium carbonate or Limestone.
Rainwater is naturally somewhat acidic because it picks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it falls thus forming Carbonic acid. This rainwater seeps into the ground and works it way down through the layers of rock. As it does this it dissolves the calcium that cements the rocks together. Then, as the water flows out of the spring and down this canyon some evaporates then depositing the calcium on the face of this rock wall as calcium carbonate or Travertine.
Some other places in the U.S. known for Travertine formations is Yellowstone Natl Park, Oklahoma as two parks dedicated to this wonder. Caves in the mid-west have formations within them.
The following Material were used for Reference:
- UCSB Geology Department
- U.S. Department of the Interior, Professional papers and Geological surveys
- Wikipedia
- California Institute of Technology
- California Division of Mines and Geology
Logging Requirements: Please E-Mail me the answers, don't post any pictures of the site itself.
1. Type in GC74YTX Travertine in Romeo Canyon? How many with you today?
2. How is the feel of the rock? Are there both ruff and smooth surfaces?
3. What is the color of the Travertine?
4. Did you smell "Rotten eggs" anywhere along the trail? This is the smell of sulfur.