Uploads from Father Tony, with geodata

detail of Jesus on the Cross

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:16:11 -0700

taken at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco on February 15, 2013 ~ see legionofhonor.famsf.org for more information

crucifix in the window

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:11:52 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

a crucifix in the window of St. Albert's Priory in Oakland, California

zion cliff

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:44:14 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

a beautiful cliff in zion national park

more hoodoos

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:00:26 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

more hoodoos in southwest Utah

Utah Red Rocks

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:35:42 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

red rocks and hoodoos in Utah

hoodoos @ red canyon

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sun, 12 May 2013 20:21:43 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

Hoodoo (geology)

A hoodoo (also called a tent rock, fairy chimney, and earth pyramid) is a tall, thin spire of rock that protrudes from the bottom of an arid drainage basin or badland. Hoodoos, which can range from 5-150 feet tall (1.5-45 meters), typically consist of relatively soft rock topped by harder, less easily eroded stone that protects each column from the elements. They generally form within sedimentary rock and volcanic rock formations.[citation needed]

Hoodoos are found mainly in the desert in dry, hot areas. In common usage, the difference between hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body." A spire, on the other hand, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward. An example of a single spire, as an earth pyramid, is found at Aultderg Burn, near Fochabers, Scotland.

Hoodoos range in size from that of an average human to heights exceeding a 10-story building. Hoodoo shapes are affected by the erosional patterns of alternating hard and softer rock layers. Minerals deposited within different rock types cause hoodoos to have different colors throughout their height.

Occurrence [edit]

Hoodoos are commonly found in the High Plateaus region of the Colorado Plateau and in the Badlands regions of the Northern Great Plains (both in North America). While hoodoos are scattered throughout these areas, nowhere in the world are they as abundant as in the northern section of Bryce Canyon National Park, located in the U.S. state of Utah (see geology of the Bryce Canyon area).

Hoodoos are a tourist attraction in the Cappadocia region of Turkey where houses have been carved from these formations. These rock formations were depicted on the reverse of the Turkish 50 new lira banknote of 2005–2009.[1][2][3]

In French, they are called demoiselles coiffées ("ladies with hairdos") and a number of them are found in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence; one of the best-known examples is the formation called Demoiselles Coiffées de Pontis.[4][5]

Đavolja Varoš (Devil's Town) hoodoos in Serbia feature 202 exotic formations described as earth pyramids or "towers", as the locals refer to them. Since 1959, Đavolja Varoš has been protected by the state, and it is also a nominee in the New Seven Wonders of Nature campaign.[6]

The hoodoo stones on the northern coast of Taiwan are unusual for their coastal setting. The stones formed as the seabed rose rapidly out of the ocean during the Miocene epoch.[7] Efforts have been made to slow the erosion in the case of iconic specimens in Wanli.

The hoodoos found in the Drumheller area of Alberta, Canada's badlands are a distinctive feature which continue to attract thousands of visitors each year. These hoodoos in particular formed between 70 and 75 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period as clay and sand sediments from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation were deposited. These hoodoos are able to maintain a unique mushroom-like appearance as the underlying base erodes at a faster rate compared to the capstones, a rate of nearly one centimeter per year, faster than most geologic structures. [8]

Formation [edit]

Hoodoos form typically form in areas where a thick layer of a relatively soft rock, such as mudstone, poorly cemented sandstone or tuff (consolidated volcanic ash), is covered by a thin layer of hard rock, such as well-cemented sandstone, limestone or basalt. In glaciated mountainous valleys the soft eroded material may be glacial till with the protective capstones being large boulders in the till. Over time, cracks in the resistant layer allow the much softer rock beneath to be eroded and washed away. Hoodoos are formed where a small cap of the resistant layer remains, and protects a cone of the underlying softer layer from erosion. Further erosion of the soft layer causes the cap to be undercut, eventually falling off, and the remaining cone is then quickly eroded.[9][10]

Typically, most hoodoos are formed by two weathering processes that continuously work together in eroding the edges of a rock formation. The primary weathering force at Bryce Canyon (as one example) is frost wedging. The hoodoos at Bryce Canyon experience over 200 freeze/thaw cycles each year. In the winter, melting snow, in the form of water, seeps into the cracks and then freezes at night. When water freezes it expands by almost 10%, pries open the cracks bit by bit, making them even wider, much like the way in which a pothole forms in a paved road.

In addition to frost wedging, rain also sculpts these hoodoos. In most places today, the rainwater is slightly acidic which allows the weak carbonic acid to slowly dissolve limestone grain by grain. It is this process that rounds the edges of hoodoos and gives them their lumpy and bulging profiles. Where internal mudstone and siltstone layers interrupt the limestone, you can expect the rock to be more resistant to the chemical weathering because of the comparative lack of limestone. Many of the more durable hoodoos are capped with a special kind of magnesium-rich limestone called dolomite. Dolomite, being fortified by the mineral magnesium, dissolves at a much slower rate, and consequently protects the weaker limestone underneath it. Rain is also the chief source of erosion (the actual removal of the debris). In the summer, monsoon type rainstorms travel through the Bryce Canyon region bringing short duration high intensity rain.[11]

a Wyoming road

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sat, 11 May 2013 21:51:07 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

a road in Wyoming, overlooking the Tetons

entering through the golden gate

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:21:28 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

a ship entering the bay harbor through the golden gate

Golden Gate Bridge

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 21:12:32 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

another picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, looking towards the Marin County side

light shining through the fog

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 20:05:00 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

light shining through the fog coming onto the Golden Gate Bridge

Jelly @ Monterey Bay Aquarium

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 08:35:37 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

a jelly fish at Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California

rainbow mist from Vernal Falls

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:12:29 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

mist seen from Vernal Falls making a beautiful rainbow

flower from Golden Gate Park

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:38:30 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

a flower from the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco taken during a walk on April 23, 2013

Vernal Falls from the Mist Trail

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:59:01 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

Vernal Falls from the Mist Trail ~ see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernal_Fall for more information

Merced River in Yosemite Valley

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:59:29 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merced_River for more information

scoma's @ firsherman's wharf

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 20:13:07 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

scoma's restaurant @ the fisherman's wharf in San Francisco, CA

Saturday Beach

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:50:22 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

on one of my last Saturday's in California, I went to a beach in the Marin Headlands

Lighthouse @ Point Bonita

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 16:09:03 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

the lighthouse @ Bonita Point ~ see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Bonita_Lighthouse for more information

zion colors

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Thu, 16 May 2013 22:03:18 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

Beautiful colors in Zion National Park in southwestern Utah

Fray Junípero Serra cenotaph

nobody@flickr.com (Father Tony) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 20:38:51 -0700

Father Tony posted a photo:

Mora Chapel Gallery
What is now known as the Mora Chapel Gallery was constructed between 1921 and1924 over a portion of the original convento in order to house the life-size memorial cenotaph dedicated to the founding Padre Presidente of the Alta California missions, Fray Junípero Serra.

Working at the invitation of Father Ramón Mestres, sculptor Jo Mora also designed this building and the rectory across the courtyard. His model was reportedly the Serra Chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano, the only remaining structure in Alta California where it could be proven that Father Serra had celebrated Mass.

Mora erected a temporary workshop amid the adobe ruins of the great quadrangle. There he first modeled his ideas in clay and later created full-scale plaster maquettes which, once the final design was approved, traveled to New York to be cast in bronze. From the day he accepted this commission, Jo Mora knew that it was to be “the supreme professional effort of my life.”

The final grouping was comprised of Father Serra reclining on his bier surrounded by Fathers Crespi, Lasuen and López, companions in life who are interred beside him under the altar of the Basilica. The three missionaries keep vigil around Father Serra, who lies on a renaissance-style travertine casket featuring scenes in cast bronze from the conquest of Alta California as well as likenesses of the reigning Pope and the King of Spain at the time of Serra’s death. Jo Mora even inscribed a life history of Father Serra on a bevel of bronze atop the bier. (The stone portions of the monument were carved directly from Mora’s clay maquettes by the Italian sculptor Thomas Corsini.)

The Mora placed a cast-bronze bear cut under Father Serra’s feet, an emblem of California that lightens this sad tableau with a tender stroke of whimsy. The altar table and large gilded cross – adorned with the stylized figures of Saint Francis of Asisi, San Carlos Borromeo, and Saint Anthony of Padua – were also created by Jo Mora for this chapel [photo], where for several years a special mass was celebrated on San Carlos Day.

On September 24th, 1924, as part of a week-long Serra Pageant promoted throughout the state, hundreds witnessed the dedication ceremony, among them the Spanish Ambassador, who traveled from Washington, D.C. for the occasion.

Master craftsman Harry Downie, who dedicated nearly half a century to restoring the 1797 stone church and recreating the mission complex as it appeared in its 1820s heyday, added cabinets to the Mora Chapel for the display of liturgical vestments. In 2006, the vestments were relocated in order to provide space for rotating art-and-history exhibitions of six-month duration.