12/24/2023 0 Comments Afloat el capitanThe major rock units in El Capitan along with selected ages, in millions of years. But geologists need more than just the Panorama's pictures they need close-up contact with rocks, plus samples of them to analyze in the lab. Other users of the Panorama have included climbers planning routes and rescuers planning rescues. More than 1,000 significant rock falls have been reported in the valley since 1857, and Stock says most rock falls aren't even reported. The first use of the Yosemite Panorama was to keep track of rock falls. The images were then rendered into a gigantic 3D computer model that can be explored online, much like a Gigapan image. On May 31, 2008, twenty teams of photographers snapped the high rock walls of the valley with high-resolution cameras. One of Stock's first ideas was the Yosemite Panoramic Imaging Project. Exposures like this record some three million years of activity in a magma chamber that was once miles underground. Close-up of the dark feature called "North America" on El Capitan. It helps that Greg Stock, the park's chief geologist, is a rock-climber himself. Over the years, the valley has been a laboratory for cutting-edge techniques in geology. El Capitan offers a particularly thick and clean slice into these plutons, offering much more detail than drill holes can provide. Yosemite Valley cuts deeply into the great bodies of granite, called plutons, that make up the core of the Sierra Nevada. The research, published this month in the journal Geosphere, was not just a great stunt, but also an attempt to help solve the deep scientific problem of how granite is made. Now geologists have mapped the rocks of El Capitan's vertical face using a combination of high-tech and high climbing. Elite climbers think, "I want to conquer that wall." Geologists think, "I want to study that outcrop." When they gaze at the 3,000-foot face of El Capitan, many visitors open their mouths in awe. The millions of people who visit Yosemite Valley each year see the place in many different ways.
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