Desert & Deep Time · Field Notes

Places in this lens

Select a place to open its note.

Arches

Arches National Park · Utah, USA 9 sites

Something under this park is pulling the rock apart, and it is not the wind.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
Big Bend

Big Bend National Park · Texas, USA 5 sites

Big Bend is a desert where the layers stay open.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons and Night Sky
Bryce Canyon

Bryce Canyon National Park · Utah, USA 5 sites

Bryce Canyon is not a canyon in the river's usual sense.
Also seen through Night Sky
Canyonlands

Island in the Sky · Utah, USA 5 sites

Stand at the rim here and you are standing on the top page of a book that reads straight down.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
Capitol Reef

Fruita · Utah, USA 5 sites

Capitol Reef is a desert with a crease running through it.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
Cappadocia

Cappadocia · Nevşehir, Turkey 7 sites

Cappadocia looks like a landscape assembled by hand, but no one built it.
Carlsbad Caverns

Carlsbad Caverns National Park · New Mexico, USA 5 sites

Carlsbad Caverns turns the desert inside out.
Channel Islands

Channel Islands National Park · California, USA 9 sites

Walk to almost any cliff edge on these islands and look down: the rock is banded, pale layer stacked on pale layer, running along the shoreline as far…
Also seen through Marine
Columbia River Gorge

Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area · Oregon–Washington, USA 7 sites

Drive east through the Gorge and the forest simply runs out.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
Dana Biosphere Reserve

Dana Biosphere Reserve · Tafilah, Jordan 5 sites

Stand at the rim above Wadi Dana and the ground itself does the talking.
Death Valley

Furnace Creek · California–Nevada, USA 10 sites

Most landscapes keep their history hidden.
Also seen through Night Sky
Erg Chebbi

Erg Chebbi · Drâa-Tafilalet, Morocco 7 sites

Stand anywhere in Erg Chebbi and the sand under your boots is the youngest thing in view.
Grand Staircase-Escalante

Escalante · Utah, USA 5 sites

This was among the last land in the country that anyone managed to put on a map.
Great Basin

Great Basin National Park · Nevada, USA 7 sites

Pick up any loose stone on these slopes and you are holding a small piece of an argument that has been going on for 1.7 billion years.
Also seen through Night Sky
Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree National Park · California, USA 5 sites

Joshua Tree is a desert of granite, alluvial ground, and plants built to wait.
Also seen through Night Sky
Ladakh

Ladakh · Ladakh, India 8 sites

Stand almost anywhere in Ladakh and you are looking at rock, not scenery.
Lanzarote

Parque Nacional de Timanfaya · Canary Islands, Spain 7 sites

Most landscapes hide the process that made them, folded away under soil, forest, and centuries.
Also seen through Volcanic
Meteora

Meteora · Thessaly, Greece 8 sites

Before it was scenery, this rock was rubble.
Mono Lake

Mono Lake · California, USA 5 sites

Snow melts off the Sierra, gathers into streams, and runs down into this basin — and then it has nowhere to go.
Natural Bridges

Natural Bridges National Monument · Utah, USA 5 sites

Most rock erodes too slowly for anyone to watch — a grain blown loose here, a flake of frost-cracked stone there, all of it invisible inside one human…
Also seen through Night Sky
Pinnacles

Pinnacles National Park · California, USA 7 sites

Most landscapes hide their age under soil, forest, or grass.
Also seen through Volcanic
Saguaro

Saguaro National Park · Arizona, USA 5 sites

Saguaro is a desert that stores time in living shapes.
The Atacama

Reserva Nacional Los Flamencos · Antofagasta, Chile 9 sites

Stand almost anywhere in the Atacama and the ground tells its story with nothing in the way.
Also seen through Night Sky
The Black Canyon

Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park · Colorado, USA 7 sites

Every overlook along this rim looks two ways at once: down into a gap barely wide enough for the river, and across a wall of rock old enough that it s…
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
The Eastern Sierra

Owens Valley · California, USA 8 sites

Stand in Owens Valley and look both directions at once.
Also seen through Ice & Glaciers
The Guadalupe Mountains

Guadalupe Mountains National Park · Texas, USA 5 sites

The Guadalupe Mountains rise from desert country as a piece of an older sea.
The Petrified Forest

Petrified Forest National Park · Arizona, USA 5 sites

The Petrified Forest is a desert where time has changed the material but not erased the shape.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
The Verdon Gorge

Gorges du Verdon · Provence, France 8 sites

Most canyons hide their history under soil, forest, or a few centuries of a town built over the good parts.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons
Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa

Uluṟu-Kata Tjuṯa · Northern Territory, Australia 7 sites

Stand at the base of either rock and you are looking at exposed history — no soil, no forest, nothing hiding it from you.
Valley of Fire

Valley of Fire State Park · Nevada, USA 5 sites

Valley of Fire is a desert of red sandstone made visible by erosion.
Wadi Rum

قرية وادي رم · Aqaba, Jordan 5 sites

Stand in the middle of Wadi Rum and the ground underfoot is almost perfectly flat, while the walls around it rise straight up out of the sand — red an…
Also seen through Night Sky
White Sands

White Sands National Park · New Mexico, USA 5 sites

White Sands is a desert made from a mineral that usually disappears into rock.
Zhangye Danxia

Zhangye Danxia · Gansu, China 5 sites

The hills at Zhangye look painted — bands of rust red, cream, ochre, and grey running in parallel across slope after slope.
Zion

Zion Canyon · Utah, USA 5 sites

Zion is a desert made from a former landscape of sand.
Also seen through Rivers & Canyons