Montezuma Castle — 2015 — The 21st Century Matriarch

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

The dystopian lake filled by the world’s tech lust - It’s in Inner Mongolia…a place that is one of the world’s biggest suppliers of ‘rare earth’ minerals. So sad that we can’t manage to build our tech in a way that is sustainable for the planet.

A Delicate Stone Bridge Creates a Mystical Passage with Its Reflection - After that last story - I needed to look at something beautiful for a bit...and this was it: a picture of a half-circle bridge reflected in water to complete the illusion of a full circle.

Bombing Range Is National Example for Wildlife Conservation - Elgin Air Force Base had 300 year old trees and is home to the last remaining old-growth longleaf pines in Florida…there is a natural resources visitor center and has 250,000 acres open for public recreation/wildlife habitat.

Erupting Volcanic Lightning! - A volcano on Mexico’s west coast.

A complex landscape has both vulnerabilities and resilience to climate change - Changes in the length of growing season and timing of rainfall will change the forests in Central Appalachia over the next century….and probably in the area of Maryland where I live too.

Can You Identify 20 Of The Most Common Birds in North America? - The quiz is here. Identify the bird pictured from the list - you’ll know if you got it right immediately. How many can you identify? I got 15 out of 20!

Theoretical study suggests huge lava tubes could exist on moon - So - how long will it take to have a mission to the moon to discover if the lava tubes exist?

Essential Spring Guide '15: On the Road to Castles of Stone and Wood Turned To Rock - This story brought back memories of the vacation to northeastern Arizona last January! My picture of Montezuma Castle is below!

Yellowstone by Moonlight - A 3 minute film that includes a series of time-lapse views of moonlit scenes in Yellowstone - including geysers and stars. I don’t have the patience for this kind of photography but I enjoy seeing the work of others.

MIT Climate CoLab Asks All For Impactful Climate Plans - Contests seeking high impact ideas on how to tackle climate change…submission due 5/16/2015. The Climate CoLab site is here.

Montezuma Castle National Monument is a good stop on the way between Tucson and Flagstaff. The reconstructed ‘castle’ is in a large depression in the cliff face. But everywhere there are smaller spaces that were walled to make storage areas

And on flatter ledges near the base of the cliff there are walls were there were other dwellings.

Water is nearby. It is easy to imagine why this was a place people chose for building/farming.

In one of the rock niches on the cliff, there were combs of bees (I used my camera zoom to 30x)!

There is good signage for native plants like Desert Christmas Cactus

And Arizona Sycamore. The Arizona Sycamores look different than the ones we have on the east coast. There is green shading in the peeling bark and the lobes of the leaves are deeper.

Next time I am in the area, I want to plan enough time to check out Montezuma Well that is part of the same National Monument but not contiguous with the castle area.