Blue Basin Overlook, eastern Oregon, 20-September-2021

After a weekend of rain showers, the colors of the Blue Basin were really popping! The blue-green color is from a mineral called celadonite that gets created in certain layers of volcanic ash. The red layers in the background reveal ancient soils from when the climate here was tropical. And in the background, the dark horizontal layers in the ridgeline were created by dozens of basalt lava flows that covered up this land a few million years ago (youngest rocks on top!).

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