The Kingdom of Sedimentary Rock

In May of 2014, an article I wrote about the Colorado Plateau appeared in the Society for Scientific Photography’s members’ magazine, which is published twice a year. The article contrasts the rather vertical and violent history of the Japanese Archipelago with the more horizontal and comparatively sedate history of the Colorado Plateau. The archipelago has a history of volcanoes that grew and collapsed and grew again, and mountain ranges that were uplifted through tectonic activity, and then cut by rivers. On the other hand, the Colorado Plateau has experienced mostly the deposition of sediments over nearly 2 billion years, with seas, river deltas, flood plains, and vast dune fields taking turns in providing different sedimentary deposits.

The article was conceived upon my return from Las Vegas in 2010 when I read through the books I had purchased about Zion and Bryce Canyons. During my brief stay, I had managed a few short trips to these places as well as Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire State Parks in Nevada. Pondering the very different geomorphology of Japan and the Colorado Plateau, I thought of how impossible it would be for such landscapes to have formed and developed in a tectonically active ocean archipelago. This I wanted to share with a Japanese audience.

The article was initially submitted to Nippon Kamera along with medium and large format film photographs. Six of the photos were published, but the article had to be trimmed down considerably. Still eager to share my whole story, I submitted it to the association of which I am a member. In the past, the magazine ran an article I wrote about alpine glaciers. So I was very pleased to see my latest work published as well.

Many thanks to Naoko Watanabe for checking over my Japanese and making it comprehensible and grammatically correct.