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Painted Hills Unit
click on photos to enlarge
| Painted Hills, vividly colored striped
hills. The colors reflect changes in ancient soils and vegetation during a major global cooling event 33 million years ago. |
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| Sign read: "The red in the Painted
Hills is from rusty iron minerals oxidized by long exposure. The golden layers reveal a mix of oxidized magnesium and iron, metamorphic claystone minerals. Black ash marks are rich with manganese. Each of the colors represents a different geologic process. This valley is a gently contoured theater of geologic change, with erosion from rain the latest sculptor." |
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| Painted Cove Trail. |
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| Looks like a scene from sci fi novel "Dune". |
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| Picnic oasis spot by Painted Hills. |
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| View of small desert lake by Painted Hills. |
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