Raspberries!!!


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Posted by Beej (97.121.194.23) on 12:33:49 03/18/17

In Reply to: Question posted by Ballpark Frank

Was cruising along the base of Overhanging Cliff with one of the Yellowstone Institute's geology courses trying to get the definitive picture of the six-sided but irregular basalt chunks making up the roof of the overhang, when I realized the little red things we were seeing amid the greenery tangling our feet...were real raspberries! Loads of them! It was an amazing year for them, and the bears hadn't found them yet. A few years ago, when the road crews had to cut into the existing overhangs to widen the road, I knew it would be tough on the berries, since they would be cut away with the rock in the process. So I kept an eye on my favorite cracks in the rock, and it only took two years before the raspberries had begun to recolonize. The third year after they finished construction, there was a pretty good berry crop, but also those pesky signs.

Another thing one used to be able to see in that vicinity (at the floor of the overhang) were the "contact swirls" of pumice ash left from when the liquid basalt flow poured out over the then surface 600,000 years ago. One of the archaeologists pointed it out...too old to radio-carbon date, but a real place to touch deep time!



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