The Paint Mines Interpretive Park in Calhan, CO is an arid landscape, which exists today due to prehistoric tectonic forces. Fifty-five million years ago, the park was a tropical forest, but as the plates shifted great uplifting occurred on the Front Range. This uplifting caused the Pikes Peak granite of the area to become exposed and then erode on the surface (1, 4). The resulting badlands full of colorful clay spires which occurred due to oxidized iron deposits, then eroded into white sandstone called Dawson Arkose (1,2).
Photo 1 shows a geological timeline of the area.
These are various images of the park’s features, each
will act as a visual aid in the discussion of the park’s future. If the fluvial processes shaping this landscape continue throughout the thousands of years, features like these veins of erode rock will become flat or perhaps even concave
I believe in the theory of uniformitarianism: the theory that changes in the earth's crust during
geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes (5).
With that I believe the park will continue to experience fluvial erosion until
another great uplifting occurs. In accordance with photo 1, in one thousand years and assuming
fluvial processes continue, the landscape will remain relatively the same, but
will slowly continue to break down exposing prehistoric rock. In ten thousand years the slow continuation of erosion will occur and the beginnings of the Paleosol layer will show. The Paleosol layer is a stratum or soil horizon that
was formed as a soil in a past geological period (3). In one million years the
badlands will have eroded down into the Paleosol layer of the earth. Continuing
with the theory of uniformitarianism I am further going to predict that in
fifty-five million years there will be another tectonic shift in the area causing
another uplift and the fluvial cycle will start over.
1. Paint Mines Interpretive Park. Calhan: El Paso County, n.d. Print.
2. "Paint Mines Interpretive Park." Paint Mines Interpretive Park. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2012.
3. "Paleosol." Def. 1. N.p.: Dictonary, n.d. Print.
4. "UCCS | Geomorphology - Calhan Paint Mines." UCCS | Geomorphology - Calhan Paint Mines. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2012
5.. "Uniformitarianism." Def. 1. N.p.: Dictionary, n.d. Print.
