Friday Field Foto #54: Dust storm in west Texas

I did my master’s research on the Permian Brushy Canyon Formation in the Delaware and Guadalupe mountains of west Texas (I’ve shown some photos here, here, and here). The outcrop belt is adjacent to the Salt Basin Graben, which is the easternmost Basin and Range basin. In the photo below, the cactus-covered cliffs in the foreground are the Brushy Canyon outcrops and the mountains way in the distance on the skyline are other Permian rocks on the other side of the Salt Basin Graben.

Every once in a while, the storms that came through this area in the summer would create these ridiculously vigorous dust storms that would move up the axis of the valley. The photograph above is about an hour before the photo below (from almost the same spot). Note that light brownish ‘cloud’ very low in the sky. About 10 minutes after this photograph, this thing hit us in the hills like a freight train. We were taking cover in any little overhangs we could find. Good times.

Happy Friday!

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