#owyhee

The rocks behind him are a fairly famous sedimentary sequence near the community of Rome, Oregon. The rocks are a mixture of lake deposits, sandstones, shales, and volcanic deposits that rained down either into the lakes or at times when the lakes had dried up. They are late Miocene to Pliocene in age, from about 15 million years old to as young as a few million. The Owyhee River has cut through these sedimentary rocks, leaving steep walls along its path. A long stretch of this country has been nicknamed the “Pillars of Rome” as the sedimentary rocks have been eroded in such a way as to remind observers of classical Roman construction. -JBB Image credit: John Wirt, USGS https://flic.kr/p/v6dxm5 Read more http://oregon2.sierraclub.org/chapter/high-desert-poi http://bit.ly/1LKnyRJ http://www.oregonriver.com/owyheerivergeology.htm http://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/1332b/report.pdf