The Velvet Vault....

This time I have included a lot of the raw research and a few of many pictures sorted through to put one of these posts together. 

On our journeys between Antonito and Chama enter the region above Sublette, MP 306.06 and on to Osier MP 318.08 or the other way around if travelling from Chama to Antonito, we enter an area of intense geological activity.  The term "spectacular" was applied to this 12 mile section as early as 1885 with the writing of "Crest of The Continent" by Ernest Ingersoll.  He said thus:

"A narrow pathway carved out far up the mountain's side" - Lower Toltec Gorge

"Describing a number of large curves around constantly deepening depressions, we reached the breast of a mountain whence we obtained our first glimpse into Los Pinos Valley; and it came like a sudden revelation of beauty and grandeur.  The approach had been gentle and picturesque in character.  Now we found our train clinging to a narrow pathway carved out far up the mountain's side, while great masses of volcanic conglomerate towered overhead, and the face of the opposing heights broke off in bristling crags.  The river sank deeper and deeper into the narrowing vale, and the space between us to the banks was excitingly precipitous..."

As the years went on the description of the passage became less lyrical and more, shall we say, antiseptic.  A public accustomed to easy access to previously inaccessible areas was given a dry description of a once special place in a publication issued through the New Mexico Bureau of Mines and Mineral Resources which reduced Ingersoll's early description to this:

Mile Post 312.30 - "Phantom Curve, Reenter Colorado.  The cuts ahead afford a close view of chaotic breccias in the Conejos Formation and the many pedestal rocks left by erosion of alternating soft and hard breccias, flows and conglomerates."
James: "Scenic Trips to the Geological Past" May, 1972

A few years later a slightly more jaded readership was re-introduced to a by then overworked work, "spectacular", in order to impart a sense that this place was in some way special:

"Mile Post 313
This is one of the most spectacular sections of track along the C&TS route and has been photographed from nearly every conceivable angle.  The chaotic breccias and conglomerates that form the weird shapes, pedestal rocks and jumbled outcrops are the result of alteration by hot waters and weathering of the hard and soft breccias.  The wide variety of colors are due to chemical changes in the rocks.  A deep cut near milepost 312 is a good place to see these Conejos breccias.
Osterwald: "Ticket to Toltec"1976 

With very little effort the whole experience can be reduced to a human size thus:  Our Roman ancestors are celebrated for a remarkable feat of human hubris which is called their "greatest" contribution to construction. Using particularly difficult formula, for them, consisting of sand, volcanic ash and small stones they managed to stumble upon, and take credit for, one of natures multitude of original construction materials:


Conglomerates:
"Conglomerate (pronunciation: /kəŋˈɡlɒmərᵻt/) is a coarse-grained clastic sedimentary rock that is composed of a substantial fraction of rounded to subangular gravel-size clasts, e.g., granules, pebbles, cobbles, and boulders, larger than 2 mm (0.079 in) in diameter. Conglomerates form by the consolidation and lithification of gravel. Conglomerates typically contain finer grained sediment, e.g., either sand, silt, clay, or combination of them, called matrix by geologists, filling their interstices and are often cemented by calcium carbonate, iron oxide, silica, , or hardened clay."
Wikipedia

Concrete:
"Concrete is a composite material composed of coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement which hardens over time."
Wikipedia

Rome:
"The Romans used concrete extensively from 300 BC to 476 AD, a span of more than seven hundred years. During the Roman Empire.  Roman concrete... was made from quicklime, possolana, and an aggregate of pumice. Its widespread use in many Roman structures, a key event in the history of architecture termed the Roman Architectural Revolution, freed Roman construction from the restrictions of stone and brick material and allowed for revolutionary new designs in terms of both structural complexity and dimension.

Concrete, as the Romans knew it, was a new and revolutionary material. Laid in the shape of arches, vaults and domes it quickly hardened into a rigid mass, free from many of the internal thrusts and strains that troubled the builders of similar structures in stone or brick.^"

"Pozzolana, also known as pozzolanic ash...), is a siliceous or siliceous and aluminous material which reacts with calcium hydroxide in the presence of water at room temperature (cf. possolanic reaction). In this reaction insoluble calcium silicate hydrate and calcium aluminate hydrate compounds are formed possessing cementitious properties. The designation pozzolana is derived from one of the primary deposits of volcanis ash used by the Romans in Italy, at Possouli.  Nowadays the definition of pozzolana encompasses any volcanic material (pumice or volcanic ash), predominantly composed of fine volcanic glass, that is used as a possolan."
Wikipedia


Thus the remarkable geologic events covering millions of years have been reduced to this:  Sand, Lime and Small rock (aggregate).  Mix them together with a little water dump the slurry into a mold wait a bit and the Romans gave us this:

What clever creatures we are, over the years we did this:

And this:

Perhaps this:

Smaller:

BIGGER:

Meanwhile nature did her work and here is the result:

Phantom Curve - Conglomerate of Conejos Formation Breccias

And this:

Toltec Tunnel - 366' Metamorphic Rock

Turn her loose and this is what you get:

Massif:

Blanca Massive from Little Bear

Overwhelming:

Sangre De Christo - "The Blood of Christ"

 Sublime:

San Antonio Mountain at Twilight

 Vast:

Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument - Taos County, NM

 I think all youngsters have a moment when they realize how insignificant they are.  It may be on a beach pondering the uncountable grains of sand, sleeping with a window open listening to the sounds of a forest or laying on the ground at night looking into the velvet vault of the sky and realizing just how tiny we are.  In times such as this we need to ground ourselves and look at the world around us.  I do this by riding a train and telling a story about the land, the people and the railroad.  We look back and ask, "How could they do this with pick and shovel", now we need to look forward learning the lessons of our past.  If our kind could do all that with so little how much more are we capable of if we remember our place in the world nature has given us and treat it gently.

P.S.:  I started this post just after five this evening and posted it at nine thirty this evening.  I enjoy writing them I hope you enjoy reading same.

Thanks

j