Friday Field Foto #66: Puente del Inca (near Mendoza, Argentina)
In 2006 I had the opportunity to go to a geology conference in Mendoza, Argentina on my way back from field work in Patagonia. Part of this conference, called ‘Backbone of the Americas’, was a day trip from Mendoza at the foot of the Andes up to a view of the highest peak in the western hemisphere, Aconcongua.
The point of the trip was to check out the fold-thrust belt structure of the Andean Cordillera. Along the way we stopped at a popular attraction called Puente del Inca.
Puente del Inca, Argentina (© 2008 clasticdetritus.com)
To be perfectly honest, I know essentially nothing about this place … it was a really quick stop (and I haven’t tried Googling it either … yeah, I’m lazy).
If anyone knows more about this place – both the natural and human-made structure – please comment below.
Happy Friday!
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see this older Friday Field Foto from this trip here
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Clastic Detritus 
The orange flow-y looking stuff looks a lot like deposits of some tepid springs here. (Tufa mounds? Travertine deposits, I think?) There’s one place north of Durango where a warm spring has been diverted underneath a highway and into a man-made pile of rocks, and in nine or so years, it has developed layers of travertine (?) that look a lot like your photo.
Kim, yeah definitely some kind of travertine deposits … I wonder if that building was something related to hot springs?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puente_del_Inca