New Delhi: Nature has numerous jaw-dropping places and the Painted Hills is unarguably one among them. It is a place in Oregon’s Wheeler County. Covering an area of 3,132 acres, the place is one of the Seven Wonders of Oregon and it looks as if nature has painted the hills with different colours. After seeing the place, one will inevitably ask how was it formed and how it became such a glorious beauty.
Know about mesmerising Painted Hills
The site of Painted Hills is situated about 10 miles northwest of Oregon’s Mitchell and has stripes of red, tan, orange, and black. The place is an example of the sequence of past climate change and it also has a diverse assemblage of leaf fossils aged 39-30 million years old called the Bridge Creek Flora. The place also has a small outcropping of rock which has animal fossils from 30-27 million years ago.
How was it formed?
About 35 million years ago, the Painted Hills started to form when ash and pumice from volcanic eruptions in the Cascade Mountains were carried by wind 100 miles east and deposited over the area. Natural processes like growth of plants, flow of water, and animal movements mixed the ash and other sediments which oxidised the ash on the surface. The ash turned into soil after being buried under deposits. Over time, thanks to nature, the exterior surfaces of the hills turned into clay.
Why do Painted Hills have variations in colours?
The Painted Hills has several colours due to the combination of elements like Iron, Aluminum, Magnesium, Silicon, Manganese, Calcium, Sodium, Titanium, Phosphorus, Hydrogen, Potassium, and Oxygen, among others, which came with the ash during the volcanic eruptions. The colours were originally light and they became darker as the ash mixed with soils and other elements to form colours like black, red and yellow.
The alternating red and tan layers were formed by cycling climate conditions while the darker, black soil is lignite that was vegetative matter once. The grey colouring is mudstone, shale and siltstone and the hills have black marks which are from manganese oxide. While the colours of the Painted Hills are beautiful throughout the day, the place looks the best in the late afternoon. Changing light and moisture levels drastically affect the tones and hues visible in the hills and the change also depends on seasons.
The site of Painted Hills is situated about 10 miles northwest of Oregon’s Mitchell and has stripes of red, tan, orange, and black. The place is an example of the sequence of past climate change. knowledge Knowledge News, Photos and Videos on General Knowledge
