Kicking It In Crested Butte and a Little Geology Lesson

Over the summer, my family and I took a driving trip to several sites in Colorado that we hadn't been to before, or at least not in awhile.  I never got around to sharing pictures from that trip, but now that I have some free time on my hands, I've decided to go back and share some of the cooler pictures from that trip!  Let's start in the awesome and beautiful Crested Butte!

First off, a little geology lesson!  According to some of the signs placed along the path near town, Crested Butte* is something called a laccolith.  As you can see on the diagrams below on the sign, laccoliths look kind of like pimples that form at some places on the earth's surface.  First, layers of sedimentary rock were deposited.  Next, igneous rock in the form of magma melted its way through several of the underlying sedimentary layers, as you can see in the second picture.  The presence of more matter caused the overlying sedimentary layers to be pushed up, while the underlying layers remained flat.  

Over time, the magma cooled and crystallized, forming a granite-like igneous rock, with crystals of feldspar mixed in.  By using radiometric dating, geologists have determined that these rocks were formed around 30 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch.  Over those last 30 MY, erosion and weathering have broken down those layers of sedimentary rock that once covered the laccolith, and exposed the intrusion.  The intrusion is what makes up what you would walk on and see when you are on the mountain. 

A picture of some of the rocks near the summit of Crested Butte.  You can see a little pika peeking out from behind a rock in the center of the picture!  Interestingly (at least to me), the last time I talked about either pikas or the Oligocene Epoch was in the same post, the "Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 1)," a fun post if there ever was one!

Crested Butte (the mountain) has been further isolated from the surrounding mountains due to the influence of glacial forces.  Telltale signs of past glaciation are abundant in and around Crested Butte, including the u-shaped valleys, polished bedrock, giant boulders in places where they have no business being, and moraines (defined below), amongst other lines of evidence, all point to past episodes of glaciation.  Geologists have dated most of the moraines as about 22.5 to 16.5 thousand years old, during the last Ice Age, and believe that glacial retreat occurred rapidly about 15,000 years ago.  Even older glacial deposits date back to around 100,000 years ago!  

The scenery was truly spectacular between the town and where we were staying, up near the mountain resort, which in turn was next to the very confusing home rule principality of Mt. Crested Butte.  At times, the path turned into a boardwalk, which helped to preserve the wetlands in the area.  

Towards town, we passed over the Slate River.

A shot of the bridge over the Slate River in the foreground, with Crested Butte in the background.

As you can imagine, the area was populated by numerous birds, several of which I got pictures of.  I am fairly confident that this first one was a female mountain bluebird (Sialia currucoides).

We also saw a ton of killdeer (Charadrius vociferus), a fascinating bird, the adults of which will feign injury to draw predators away from fledlings, nests, eggs, and the like.  I've included a video which shows one of these animals doing its injury feigning!  In case the internal link or whatever it's called isn't working, click HERE to view the video.

Here are the pictures I took of the many killdeer running around!

A few more shots of the amazing scenery!

The next day out the window of the hotel room, we saw a pudgy dog walking by with a neck pillow looking thing around its neck.  A little research revealed that this was a KONG Cloud E-Collar, which pretty much serves the same purpose as the cone that you put on dogs and cats after surgeries or the like.  

Here is another picture of the dog.  This time it is relieving itself.

We ate breakfast at a fun little place along the creek!  I had a pancake that was ridiculously enormous.

There were lots of very pretty flowers all over town, including these yellow or wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum).  

I don't remember which building it was exactly, but one of the buildings in town had the mounted head of what is supposedly the world's largest rack of elk antlers, shot in Crested Butte in 1899 by a man named John Plute.  The antlers were certified as the largest in the world in 1961.  They definitely did look pretty large!

We'll be looking at more pictures from Crested Butte later!  See you then!

*Point of interest and possible confusion: Crested Butte can refer both to the town with a population of around 1,000, or the mountain with an elevation of 12,168 feet.  If you hear someone talk about Mt. Crested Butte, then they are most likely referring to the home rule principality by that name.  I don't really know what a home rule principality is, and a little bit of research nearly put me into a deep, trance-like state.  

Crested Butte on Dwellable

Works Cited:

Top Ten Mammals That Look Like Something They Aren't (Part 1)

Today, we are going to be taking a "Top Ten" look at some mammals that look a lot like something they aren't.  Sometimes, these two animals are fairly closely related: other times, they are quite far apart!  All of these examples will be results of a fascinating phenomenon known as "Convergent Evolution," which is where similar ecological and environmental factors cause two very different animals to evolve in a similar fashion.  So let's dive right in!  But first, this is the birthday post of Joseph Kleinkopf, happy birthday Joseph! (For Part 2, animals 5-1 of the countdown, click HERE.)

10.  Bear Dogs - As their name implies, the bear-dogs are a group of mammalian carnivores that greatly resemble both bears and dogs.  However, they are neither!  According to The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives by Alan Turner, they are thought to be fairly closely related to dogs, and more distantly related to bears.  Their remains are most commonly found in North America, although they are also found in Europe, Asia, and Africa.  Temporally, these animals lived during the Miocene Epoch, and are though to have arisen about 15 MYA, and fallen into extinction around 12 million years ago (MYA).

9.  Entelodonts - The Entelodonts, frequently referred to as "Hell" or "Terminator Pigs" greatly resemble the extant (still around, opposite of extinct) pigs and peccaries.  However, they are in a separate family from both the pigs and the peccaries, the family Entelodontidae, but all three do reside in the order Artiodactyla.  Some paleontologists believe that these guys are more closely related to whales and their relatives than pigs, but their exact phylogenetic relationship is unclear.  They inhabited North America and Europe during the Oligocene Epoch, around 34-32 MYA. 

8.  Hyrax - This little guy looks like he would be a rodent, but his true relatives are actually much more surprising!  Weighing between about 5 and 10 pounds, the hyraxes are actually fairly closely related to the members of the family Proboscidea, or the elephants and their relatives!  The extant hyraxes have their own family, Hyracoidea, but their ancient ancestors are thought to have branched into the extant hyraxes, the elephants and kin, and most likely the manatee and its relatives!  Hyraxes are found exclusively in Africa and the Middle East.

7.  Red Panda - The red panda has a long history of uncertainty in regards to its phylogenetic relationship to other animals, as has its namesake, the giant panda.  However, now we know that the giant panda is in the family Ursidae, or the bear family, and the red panda is now classified in its own family, Ailuridae, closely related to the mustelids, raccoons, and more, distantly bears.  For more information about the red panda, click HERE.  For more information about the giant panda, click HERE.

6.  Rabbits and Pikas - Even up until just a few years ago, I had assumed that the rabbits and the pikas were both rodents.  They look a lot like them, and they share the trait of continually growing teeth.  However, the members of the order Lagomorpha, which is the order that includes the rabbits and the pikas, differs from the order Rodentia in that they possess four incisors, as opposed to two for the rodents.  Furthermore, most rodents are omnivorous, while the lagomorphs are almost entirely strictly herbivorous.

For Part 2, animals 5-1 of the countdown, click HERE.

And remember, if you have a birthday coming up, just email me the date at cuyvaldar123946@gmail.com with the date and your favorite animal, and I will do my best to get a post in!