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The Tertiary Ogallala Formation is best known as the host rock for one of the largest freshwater aquifers on Earth. In Ellis County, Kansas the Ogallala is exposed at the surface and forms resistant hill-capping exposures such as the ones seen in this Gigapan.
My largest Gigapan yet at 2.45 gigapixels, this monster is stitched from 726 individual photos and took over 40 minutes to shoot. If the Gigapan robot were able to interrupt the shooting sequence and allow me to move the camera arbitrartily to capture transient phenomena (and then resume the panorama where I interrupted it) I'd have been able to capture a pair of wild turkeys in flight and a herd of cattle that wandered into the field. Not that there's a lack of things to see in this one, but being able to capture transient phenomena such as these would make this image significantly more interesting and educational. |
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Castle Rock is an erosional remnant of Upper Cretaceous Niobrara Formation (Smoky Hill member) chalk, located in southeastern Gove County, Kansas. The chalk badlands at this locality owe their preservation to a caprock of Ogallala Formation conglomerates, visible atop the cliff at left and in boulders on the slope. |
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Tertiary Ogallala Formation conglomerates form a resistant cap that holds up the soft, thin bedded Cretaceous Niobrara Formation, Smoky Hill member chalk deposits below. |
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Tertiary Ogallala Formation capping a hill in southern Rooks County, Kansas. Cretaceous Smoky Hill Chalk beds are exposed in the lower slopes south of CC Road (left). This gigapan is shot from a lower vantage point in the foreground of http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=2840 |
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Tertiary Ogallala Formation capping a hill in southern Rooks County, Kansas. Cretaceous Smoky Hill Chalk beds are exposed in the lower slopes south of CC Road (left). The shooting location for http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=2845 is near the center of this image. |
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Taken just before sunset. The shadows in the bottom right of this Giagpan weren't in view when I started shooting. |
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An isolated hill capped by Ogallala Formation conglomerates rises above a quarry in the Smoky Hill Chalk. |