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Image of the Day — Horizontal Columnar Jointing.

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Posted: Thursday, October 31, 2024

photograph — *Horizontal Columnar Jointing*. NM-196 east of Costilla, Taos Co., New Mexico.

Image taken: 08/30/2013

by: Mark Leo-Russell

Image courtesy of Mark Leo-Russell for use by the NM Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources. All other rights and use restricted.

Longitude: -105.49
Latitude: 36.96
(WGS 84 or NAD 83)

About this image

Horizontal Columnar Jointing. NM-196 east of Costilla, Taos Co., New Mexico. Columnar joints occur when igneous rocks cool from the molten state and shrink into a regular array of polygonal columns. Devils Tower (Bear Lodge Butte) in Wyoming (of Close Encounters of the Third Kind movie fame) and Devils Postpile National Monument in California are examples of columar jointing. In those cases the columns are generally vertical where this outcrop in northern New Mexico has predominately horizontal to sub-horizontal columns.

Camera Details

Canon PowerShot S5 IS Exposure: 12.9 mm f/4.0 1/636 sec ISO 100.

Image posted: 05-31-2023