From the bowels of the Earth it came! The unimaginable magma from 1.8 billion years ago is now igneous Precambrian rock that lies atop the mountains and the high cliffs of the Rio Grande Gorge, the oldest exposed rock in the state. Metamorphic rock from sediments deposited at the bottom of an ancient ocean 1.7 billion years ago makes up the rest. You’re looking at Taos Mountain in the clouds. There are no foothills here, because the Sangre de Cristos rose straight out of the ground around five million years ago. That means this thing has been somewhere.
Apparently the mountains are still rising, too. Better see them while the roads are long enough.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Beautiful! Thanks for the geology lesson. It makes one feel very small and insignificant in the history of the earth. Glad man has left it alone.
Taos Mountain belongs to Taos Pueblo, of course. They consider it sacred, and it’s off-limits to non-Natives. I doubt it would have been left alone under any other circumstances!
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