I’ve showed you several images from the Arches National Park recently, mainly because I have been revising and revamping those images for my Web site. I have recently posted these new images and I invite you to take a look.
This image, appropriately named “Twin Fins” shows two very large fins inside the park. You can see they are pretty tall as measured against the trees in the foreground. They are called fins as they closely resemble fins on a shark…and they are extremely important in the formation of the Arches National Park.
Although length, height and width vary, a fin is a long wall of rock. The fins here began as a series of cracks in large layers of sandstone. The cracks formed because of a great concentration of salt beneath the sandstone. I won’t go into the details of the long geologic process that continues to form the final shape of the fins…but suffice it to say that fins are the perfect place to form an arch.
Years of wind, blown sand, and water has scoured the fins. Some parts of fins are harder than others; the softer parts wear faster, and sometimes wear away completely while harder rock remains. In other fins, water seeps into the sandstone, then freezes during Moab's bitter desert winters. Water expands when it freezes, so it cracks and fragments the rock. Eventually it leaves holes in the fins. In other cases, water puddles on top of a fin wear deeper and deeper holes over the Millennia; some of these "potholes" eventually tunnel down and form an arch.
Presently there are no arches to be seen on these fins, but I bet you a dollar to a donut that the process is already underway. Sadly, I won’t be around to see the new arches when they finally emerge.
From a photographic standpoint, I really like this image. I hope you do also.
(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)
To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.
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