Shoutout to the road cut on I-70 near Glenwood Canyon

I drove through there last week and finally noticed the clear layers in the rock walls. The red sandstone sits right on top of a thick gray limestone, and you can see the line where they meet. It made me realize how much history is stacked up in plain sight. Has anyone else seen a spot where two rock types are that clearly stacked together?

3 comments

3 Comments

grace_hunt841mo ago

Wait, is that really what you saw? I've stopped at that cut a bunch of times and it always looked like a messy mix to me, not a clean stack. The layers seem broken up and folded, like everything got stirred around a long time ago. Maybe the light was hitting it different for you, but I just see a big jumble of rock.

anna_singh1mo ago

My friend said the same thing after her first geology class trip.

blair3961mo ago

Funny enough, I thought the same thing for years. What changed my mind was watching a sunset hit the cut, and suddenly the tilted layers just popped out. Now I can't unsee the order in the mess.