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slgwv

slgwv club

Posted: 25 May 2017

Taken: 02 Apr 1992

12 favorites     23 comments    1 078 visits

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New Mexico •
Navajo Reservation •
Shiprock •
volcanic neck •

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Shiprock, New Mexico

Shiprock, New Mexico
A classic volcanic neck seen in many textbooks. (There are lots better photos out there than mine! This was a drive-by when I passed thru the area 25 years ago.) A neck is the erosional remnant of a volcano, where all that's left of the edifice is the harder rock that filled the throat, i.e., the conduit that carried magma up the middle. Some radial dikes, representing magma that filled cracks within the volcano, are also weathered out. The inset shows one, with Shiprock in the background.
Shiprock is one of a number of necks in the area, where magma conduits poked up thru the flat-lying sedimentary cover. It's on the Navajo Reservation, and for that reason is no longer open to climbing as it's a sacred area.

Anton Cruz Carro, Alan Mays, Nouchetdu38, Ruebenkraut and 8 other people have particularly liked this photo

Comments
 Roger (Grisly)
Roger (Grisly) club
An iconic rock even this side of the pond.
6 years ago.
 slgwv
slgwv club
Thanks, everyone! The place is indeed iconic, and I'd like to get better photos--if the Navajos allow it!
6 years ago.
 slgwv
slgwv club has replied
(see the discussion)
Those are indeed erosional, not necks. Note how you can follow the layers (strata) consistently from one spire into the next. By contrast, a neck is an intrusive igneous feature and so will cross-cut the country rock. The constituent igneous rock will also have a wildly different composition than the country rock, evidenced by different color(s) and textures. If you look at the contact of the rock types in detail, you'll typically see the country rock broken off; there may even be pieces entrained in the igneous rock, and some alteration ("contact metamorphism") due to the heating.

Here are some necks--or dikes; thin intrusive bodies, anyway--elsewhere on the Rez, somewhere off US 160 (outlined).
www.ipernity.com/doc/289859/23519399/in/album/451867
They have names, but at this point I'm not sure exactly which they are! Shiprock itself is visible in the distance on the skyline. Note the dark gray-green color and different weathering style, which contrasts strongly with the surrounding red, even-bedded sedimentary rocks.
6 years ago. Edited 6 years ago.
 Ruebenkraut
Ruebenkraut club
great shot and interesting text
6 years ago.
 Don Barrett (aka DBs travels)
Don Barrett (aka DBs… club has replied
(see the discussion)
These help me technically understand the difference, but I need to see it more closely. I'm doing a long trip in a couple of weeks roughly up the Rio Grande, through Gunnison, and down along the Colorado, so will see if I can sort this out better visually.
6 years ago.

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