Obsidian

Sáttítla National Monument

/ bigdiff / Leave a comment

While trying to find a plowed road through the highlands northeast of Mount Shasta in northern California, I asked a local what he knew about this Biden monument, but he hadn’t heard of the park we were both in. He referred to the area as the Medicine Lake ridge, and he suggested that nearby Glass Mountain was also worth visiting. Medicine Lake above is named for the large low profile or ‘shield’ volcano it sits below. The high point is almost 8,000 feet, but the whole area is high enough to have snow drifts blocking roads in May.

Sáttítla means ‘Obsidian’ in the local native language, and Glass Mountain is loaded with the black volcanic glass. To be clear, this is the Glass Mountain in Modoc National Forest near Lava Beds, not the 11,000+ foot Glass Mountain in the Inyo National Forest near Yosemite. The road and hiking are rough in this US Forest Service monument, and it’s illegal to gather obsidian. Fortunately the active volcano hasn’t erupted in 1000 years or so. But geologically, this is still a fascinating area.

The many volcanoes in Northern California, like Lassen and Shasta, are created by action deep below the surface. Until I got lost up here, I never knew that when one of the tectonic subduction plates slides under the continent, it can slice off a top surface layer, leaving contrasting features. Besides sharp peaks like Black Butte aside 101, there are faults that cause water falls like Middle Falls near McCloud below on its way to Shasta Lake.

El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro

/ bigdiff / 1 Comment

The Plaza Santo Domingo in the historic center of Mexico City is the southern terminus of ‘The Royal Road of the Interior Land’, a World Heritage Site. As you can see above, some vendors still use traditional market stands on this trade trail first developed by pre-Columbian empires. The whole trail was originally a native trading route for turquoise, obsidian and feathers, and after the Spanish conquest, it was used for military, religious expansion and for silver. From this plaza, the road runs north through San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato and Zacatecas all the way through El Paso (‘the pass’) to Santa Fe (‘holy faith’). The US section—with the same Spanish name—is a national historic trail.

In the background is the Palace of the Inquisition, which arrived from Spain to punish the son of Hernán Cortés, Martín, who threatened independence in 1566. Public burnings of witches and heretics were common for ~250 years, until Mexican Independence ended the practice in 1820. The ‘palace’ now houses a UNAM medical museum, although there is a small gory museum of the inquisition a few blocks away. Mexico City is the largest and oldest city in North America, and it is well worth visiting to be able to walk in the footsteps of history.

Teotihuacán

/ bigdiff / 8 Comments

Feathered and fire serpents adorn the steps of the Quetzalcóatl Pyramid. Some weathering has occurred in the past 17 centuries, but once the eye sockets held black obsidian volcanic glass, the flames were painted bright red and feathers adorned with green jade. The museum (show your gate ticket for admission) near the Sun Pyramid shows murals, artifacts and has a large model of the site, which helps add details to the huge structures outside. None of the three pyramids can be climbed now, but I still walked a couple miles round trip, including the Moon Pyramid near where I started. I arrived early at 9 am, just as the hot air balloons were descending after their dawn tours. It’s an awesome place, but it can get hot and crowded by midday. I recommend staying nearby the night before.

At its peak, Teotihuacán was the largest city in the Americas, 6th largest in the world. Roughly, the city began sometime around 200 BC and fell around 550 CE. Much of their wealth came from obsidian tools, weapons and art, mined from local volcanoes and expertly knapped. The pyramids and related buildings show an elaborate religious class, but few signs of military or monarchs. The pyramids are designed to make observations for the Mesoamerican calendar, so the priests likely derived their power by determining the seasons. Best guess is that their civilization’s collapse was internal, with signs of drought and starvation, before simultaneous fires burned out the elites. The priests essentially had one job—to monitor the climate—, and they failed. Human success, growth, unsustainable use of natural resources, crop failure, and collapse, is a common pattern in ancient civilizations, and we are likely on a similar path due to carbon pollution.