beautiful twisted valley
Submitted by Joel on Sat, 12/01/2007 - 11:10am.
i see several interesting things happening in this wide valley. it looks like it was a primary conduit of pyroclastic flows away from the volcano, and i imagine a lot of ash finally settled here after scouring the nearby landscape. there are at least three distinct types of soil here; a dark gray band in the back which is probably still high in basalt content, a brown-orange soil closest to us which might have a lot of clay, and a greener area in the middle where mosses and algae might be responsible for the color. it's interesting to me that water is only actively flowing in the dark gray area, and i'd like to know more about whether that's an accurate observation and why it might be true. also, it seems that the shrubs on the slope in back are growing quite well, in spite of only a small quantity of water running in the stream. is there a lot of water beneath the surface of the ash? anyway, i found this scene to be very thought-provoking.
