“Slot canyons are narrow, deep, often overhanging, some of which measure less than a yard across at the top but drop a hundred feet or more from the rim to the natural floor. They are cut and scoured by water and wind; the striations of the sandstone becoming almost incandescent.”
“Seen from the surface, a slot appears as a slash, a dark and rock-solid grin. From within things are different. You do not find darkness, but a palette of colors, transmitted by light filtering down from above, bouncing wall to wall. Below the rim, the light creates a warm glow. Farther down the walls it becomes red, then purple, and finally a deep gray.”
“Waves, curls, arches and whorls - the sort of features only wind and water could conceive, all fashioned from stone, yet as fluid as the forces that shape them. It's a dream world where lines bend, upside is down, and inside is out.”
“Slots are rare: the conditions for their development exacting. These intricate little canyons begin as hairline cracks in the sandstone, cracks found by flowing water and enlarged sand grain by sand grain.”
“Where there is the slightest irregularity, the water has greater force on one side of the crack than on the other and a widening occurs. This allows the water to swirl; gradually a round hollow appears, softer material is washed away and patina is formed.”
“A slot is a series of the convoluted hollows, connected by narrow passages of varying width and length. In deeper slots, these hollows stacked on hollows climb to a height of many stories and are difficult to penetrate.”
*All quoted text in this entry is from http://www.dowell.com/dondowell/acanyon/slotc.htm
1 comment:
i know what you mean about the readership... i ponder deleting the page on a regular basis... i'm getting closer.
great work man... so many surreal looking shots of a world most know nothing about and probably won't ever see... excellent captures.
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