Returning to Colorado after the solar eclipse, I angled southwestward to Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, in an effort to escape the heavy traffic. While that plan failed miserably, I was able to view Scotts Bluff itself, protected in a National Monument since 1919. This massive erosional remnant rises up to 800 feet above the North Platte River, which sculpted most of its broad valley over the past 5 million years.
During the Cretaceous Period, some 100 million years ago, a shallow sea covered most of the High Plains region, leaving behind shale and sandstone as the Rockies rose and the sea retreated. In concert, the mountains eroded as fast as they rose and sheets of sediments were spread across the adjacent plains; volcanic debris also blew in from the San Juans of southwest Colorado. Periods of uplift, especially in the Miocene and Pliocene, intensified the erosion and fed large, meandering rivers. Today, Scotts Bluff, like the cliffs along the edge of the North Platte Valley, is a testimonial to that natural history; it is a layer-cake of sedimentary rocks deposited during the Oligocene and Miocene Periods, some 34 to 20 million years ago.
Named for Hiram Scott, a fur trapper who died in this area in 1828 (at the age of 23), Scotts Bluff has long been an important landmark, both for Native Americans and for settlers who traveled west on the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails. I would have visited the Monument myself but I had eight hours of stop-and-go traffic ahead of me.
During the Cretaceous Period, some 100 million years ago, a shallow sea covered most of the High Plains region, leaving behind shale and sandstone as the Rockies rose and the sea retreated. In concert, the mountains eroded as fast as they rose and sheets of sediments were spread across the adjacent plains; volcanic debris also blew in from the San Juans of southwest Colorado. Periods of uplift, especially in the Miocene and Pliocene, intensified the erosion and fed large, meandering rivers. Today, Scotts Bluff, like the cliffs along the edge of the North Platte Valley, is a testimonial to that natural history; it is a layer-cake of sedimentary rocks deposited during the Oligocene and Miocene Periods, some 34 to 20 million years ago.
Named for Hiram Scott, a fur trapper who died in this area in 1828 (at the age of 23), Scotts Bluff has long been an important landmark, both for Native Americans and for settlers who traveled west on the Oregon, Mormon and California Trails. I would have visited the Monument myself but I had eight hours of stop-and-go traffic ahead of me.
