An off-road/hiking trip primarily to retrieve more rocks for landscape enhancements at Taos Court. A great day at Painted Canyon! The trip started by following the two-track for about 1/2-mile. At that point a drainage to the northeast presented itself with some tracks. Continued for a couple of miles up the fairly wide and open drainage with numerous side drainages and my favorite, slot canyons for exploring.
This route primarily was through the Pleistocene Epoch (approx. 1 million years ago) Upper Palm Springs bedded sandstone and siltstone member. This unit was deposited in shallow lake environments with intermittent flooding bringing coarser grained material into the bedding. There is also indication that some of the bedding was located at the end of a larger alluvial fan which were and are common in this area.
Eventually (about 750,000 years ago), due to movement along the Painted Canyon Fault located southwest of this drainage, a significant portion of the Upper Palm Springs Member was cut off from extensive deposition experiencing localized deposition only.
The last series of photos from this trip show an area immediately adjacent to the San Andreas Fault at the front of the Painted Canyon entrance where the hills are composed of red fault gouge material due to multiple splays of the fault moving in this area. The hills are the result of compressive forces built up along the fault traces.
All of the photos from this excursion are included below.
