Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/13827
Type: Journal article
Title: Geomorphic development of the Giants of the Mimbres, Grant County, New Mexico
Author: Mueller, J.
Twidale, C.
Citation: New Mexico Geology, 2002; 24(2):39-48
Publisher: Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
Issue Date: 2002
ISSN: 0196-948X
Abstract: The Giants of the Mimbres, named by Bartlett (1851), constitute an assemblage of landforms developed on the Kneeling Nun Tuft (34.9 Ma). These forms include: tall and slender rock columns, shorter and more bulbous pinnacles, convex-upward bedrock slopes, balanced or perched rocks, boulders, and colluvial fills. It can be demonstrated that most of the major forms have developed along fracture-defined blocks and sheets in the bedrock. Conspicuous among the bedrock forms are basal concavities or flared slopes that originally developed in subsurface zones of especially intense attack by chemical and biological weathering. Therefore, the major forms were likely initiated beneath a soil mantle that has subsequently been stripped by surface erosion, producing a suite of bedrock landforms of etch origin. A comparison of modern photographs and those taken by Bell (1867) indicate that there has been little geomorphic change at the Giants in the past 133 yrs.
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Geology & Geophysics publications

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