Gully vs. Ravine

I love the early spring light filtering through the hemlocks.

Rim trail traverses gullies. These creases in the gorge walls were formed by small streams flowing to Enfield Creek.

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Some passages require a wade, others have elaborate walkways with bridges. I initially wanted to call these ravines. Upon researching the term discovered while ravines are formed by erosion, the scale here is much smaller. I could rename Enfield Gorge, to Enfield Ravine.

These shots were hand held. I used a Sony Alpha 700 dslr with a variable “zoom” lens, great for framing compositions.

Robert H. Treman New York State Park.

Click for a slideshow of this Waterfall of the Old Mill sequence
Copyright 2024 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills

Lichens: Symbiosis Set on Stone

Discover a timeless world through my lens: delve into Arizona’s Rincon Wilderness, where lichens and hedgehog cacti narrate Earth’s enduring, untold story. Join me.

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Dawn’s Embrace: A Morning Among the Rincon Peaks

Step into the serene embrace of Happy Valley Saddle through our latest blog post, and wander with us as the dawn unfolds over the majestic Rincon Peak.

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On the Road to Killen

In the early dawn, I walked the path to Killen, drawn by the legacy of my mother’s Irish youth. An abandoned hay wagon stood, a relic amidst the whispers of history and myth. Join me in uncovering the roots that intertwine family and the enduring Irish land.

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Understanding the Sego Lily: Calochortus nuttallii

Discover the Sego Lily, Calochortus nuttallii, a symbol of resilience and beauty in the arid deserts of the West. Uncover its role in pioneer survival and its captivating presence on a serene April backpack into the Rincon Wilderness. Join us in exploring the enduring grace of this desert gem.

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Sense of Scale

Come in and experience how humans are dwarfed by the eons

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Newgrange X

Step into the ancient world of Neolithic monuments and discover the astounding astronomical knowledge of our ancestors. Explore the Newgrange Lightbox in Ireland and similar marvels across Europe, revealing a deep connection between ancient peoples and the cosmos. Join me in unveiling these architectural wonders.

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Newgrange IX

Discover the mysteries of the Newgrange monument’s Entrance Stone, a showcase of exquisite Neolithic rock art. Explore spirals, lozenges, and geometric designs that define European megalithic art and delve into their potential meanings and cultural significance. Join me in uncovering the secrets of this ancient Irish wonder.

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Newgrange VIII

The Newgrange facade and kerbstones consists of stones from various locations, believed to be transported by sea and river.

The Newgrange façade and entrance of today is a creation from the large quantity of small stones unearthed and conserved during excavation given form by a steel-reinforced concrete retention wall. 

The brilliant white quartz cobblestones were collected from the Wicklow Mountains, 31 miles to the south.  Our guide called them “sunstones” for the way they reflect sunlight. In the following photograph is white quartz, the same excavated 1967-1975 from the Newgrange site and incorporated into the facade, I collected from “Miners Way” along R756 (above Glendalough).

You can also see in these photographs dark rounded granodiorite cobbles from the Mourne Mountains, 31 miles to the north.  Dark gabbro cobbles from the Cooley Mountains and banded siltstone from the shore at Carlingford Lough both locations on the Cooley Peninsula where my mother’s family still has farms.

The stones may have been transported to Newgrange by sea and up the River Boyne by fastening them to the underside of boats at low tide. None of the structural slabs were quarried, for they show signs of having been weathered naturally, so they must have been collected and then transported, largely uphill, to the Newgrange site. The granite basins found inside the chambers also came from the Mournes.

Geological analysis indicates that the thousands of pebbles that make up the cairn, which together would have weighed about 200,000 tons, came from the nearby river terraces of the Boyne. There is a large pond in this area that is believed to be the site quarried for the pebbles by the builders of Newgrange.

Most of the 547 slabs that make up the inner passage, chambers, and the outer kerbstones are greywacke. Some or all of them may have been brought from sites either 3 miles away or from the rocky beach at Clogherhead, County Louth, about 12 miles to the northeast.

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Copyright 2023 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved