The bulk of travelers associate fantastical rusty red rock formations with Arizona, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. Most people are unaware that Canada is home to some of the most stunning sandstone canyons in all of North America. The hoodoos of Drumheller, Alberta, are a series of towering rock formations that are so commanding that…
For nearly 5,000 years, the Sierra Morena mountains in Andalusia, Spain, have been a hotbed of ore mining. Thousands of years of iron, copper, silver, and gold excavation have taken a major toll on the ecosystem. The waters of a highly acidic river known as the Rio Tinto are rusty red due to centuries of…
In the mid-1800s, a young surveyor in what we now know as Colorado Springs named Rufus Cable stated that an array of whimsical red rock formations that he had stumbled upon while in the line of duty were so stately and beautiful that they looked like a meeting place for the gods. Thus, one of…
If you fly in an airplane over Winslow, Arizona and look out the window, you will spot a single large moon-like crater in the desert. The crater was caused by a sizable meteorite that smashed into planet Earth approximately 50,000 years ago—when mammoths and mastodons were as plentiful as coyotes and deer. Arizona’s arid climate…
Italy is famous for its luxury spas where patrons pay extravagant sums of money to soak in mineral pools and receive curative hydrotherapy treatments. One of Italy’s best-kept secrets is a towering waterfall that doubles as a natural hot spring in Bagni San Filippo, Italy, known as Fosso Bianco. Locals lovingly refer to Fosso Bianco…
Photos of the rusty Painted Hills in Oregon are often mistaken for vistas from arid Arizona or bone-dry southern Utah. The state of Oregon is celebrated for its vineyards, lush forests, and gushing waterfalls, but it is also home to one of the most picturesque stretches of desert in the United States. The Painted Hills…
In the late 1800s, Dr. J.J. Ott stumbled upon a boulder field in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania filled with rocks that resonated like a bell when they were struck by a rock hammer. Dr. Ott was so enamored by Upper Black Eddy’s musical rocks that he constructed a primitive xylophone-like instrument out of the most…
The rocky terrain of Farmington, New Mexico is every geologist’s dream come true. Farmington is home to fantastical sandstone and shale rock formations, ancient petroglyphs, and a bed and breakfast that is located in a cave. Farmington is considered by many people to be the one of the Land of Enchantment’s most scenic stretches of…
