Low-angle rays of late-summer sunshine warm the northwest slopes of dunes on an Icelandic black-sand beach. Though the volcanic sand is dark, the surfaces of its grains—smoothed and polished by eons of wind and water movement—reflect light nicely at shallow angles. Tucked discreetly between sweeping mountain vistas in two directions and arms of the ocean, it’s easy to overlook simple bits of … [Read more...]
Mesocyclonic Mother Ship over I-80
A high-based wall cloud hovers like a refugee from Independence Day over I-80 in the Nebraska Panhandle. Like most wall clouds, this one was nontornadic—luckily for the trucker! Winds strong enough to blow vehicles off the road can occur around and under wall clouds, even if they never spin up a tornado. For that reason, it can be a matter of life and death to avoid going under wall clouds—or … [Read more...]
Sun-Splashed Bentonite Beds
Water made this formation, and water breaks it up in two ways. This is part of a great deal of poorly consolidated Paleocene bentonite clay, in between thick layers and thin lenses of sandstone and siltstone. The gray clay, which takes on a popcorn-like texture when dry, was derived from volcanic ash that settled through shallow water. Bentonite swells and shrinks dramatically, depending on … [Read more...]
Storm Towers over Pawnee National Grassland
Few places on the Great Plains can compete with the Pawnee National Grassland for offering a serene, uncluttered natural setting from which to observe beautiful clouds and storms. This brilliantly illuminated, multicellular cumulonimbus continue to build at the tail end of a cluster of storms that soaked the higher ground to the north, and offered a different sort of "scenic" view with a wind … [Read more...]
Sunny Rain on Canna
A small summer shower in the sunshine deposited raindrops on both side of a canna leaf. Indeed, light rain still was falling at the time of this photo. The result was a magical prismatic sprinkling of shimmering sparkles and shadows, set on the symmetry of a large leaf. I'm not sure any other SkyPix image ever has, not will, compete with this for greenness. Norman OK (17 Jul 13) Looking ESE … [Read more...]
Ledges: Horizontal
[Part 2 of 2] This peek at Palette Spring has some of the same travertine terraces as the vertical view, but also, different ones to either side. The spring has its name for a good reason: many tones on the color scale inhabit the deposits, created both by other minerals besides the dominant calcium carbonate, and by algae and bacteria living in (and spilling out from) the thermal pools. … [Read more...]
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