SHIPROCK PINNACLE
Please note the attributes as the special tool references binoculars to get a better view of this formation. You can still see it without it but binoculars help a lot. You can also drive to the town Shiprock and even closer to get a spectacular view and do some great photography. Although you may drive close without permission, those roads are on Navajo land which is why this earth cache is placed a little further out. At GZ you can climb the large rock hill to get a great view. This Earthcache is about the rock formation with the same name as the nearby town. We visited this beautiful rock and knew we had to make this cache. From the posted coordinates you will get a great view of it and you will be able to appreciate the beauty of it.
About Shiprock
Shiprock (Navajo: Tsé Bitʼaʼí, "rock with wings" or "winged rock") is a monadnock rising nearly 1,583 feet above the high-desert plain of the Navajo Nation in San Juan County, New Mexico, United States. Its peak elevation is 7,177 feet above sea level. It is about 10.75 miles southwest of the town of Shiprock, which is named for the peak.
Governed by the Navajo Nation, the formation is in the Four Corners region and plays a significant role in Navajo religion, myth, and tradition. It is located in the center of the area occupied by the Ancient Pueblo People, a prehistoric Native American culture of the Southwest United States often referred to as the Anasazi. Shiprock is a point of interest for rock climbers and photographers and has been featured in several film productions and novels. It is the most prominent landmark in northwestern New Mexico. In 1975, Shiprock was designated as a National Natural Landmark by the National Park Service.
Geology
Shiprock is composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette, a type of lamprophyre. It is the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano, and the volcanic breccia formed in a diatreme. The rock probably was originally formed 2,500–3,000 feet below the Earth's surface, but it was exposed after millions of years of erosion. Wall-like sheets of minette, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age determinations of the minette establish that these volcanic rocks solidified about 27 million years ago. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field.
This image above of the Shiprock formation was captured by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) sensor on NASA’s Terra satellite on June 2, 2006. The image is not photo-like; it uses infrared light to make certain features more obvious than they would be in a natural-color image. Lush vegetation appears bright red, for example, while different kinds of rock with less vegetation appear in shades of gray, black, and tan. Shiprock Peak itself is the hardened magma that was in the central shaft of the volcano, while the dikes stretching out from the peak are the remains of magma feeder channels. The formation is bounded on the west by Shiprock Wash. Beyond is Bureau of Indian Affairs Road 5020.
Questions and Tasks
1. How was Shiprock formed?
2. How did erosion affect Shiprock?
3. Is Shiprock a volcanic neck?
4. What is the volcanic term for Shiprock?
5. As proof that you were at the location of this earthcache, please post a picture of yourself and/or your group or a picture of your GPS or phone with Shiprock in the background.