This Planet Blows My Mind

I mentioned yesterday that sometimes you can hear the rain, but not be getting rained on. Within monsoons it will sometimes rain on just one house. In this picture you can see where there are clouds over just one property, which happens to also be the direction in which the sun is setting, making for quite the heavenly photo. It had just stopped raining on them.

(Photo taken from the patio, looking west)

This behavior of monsoons is one of the many new things I've learned since moving to this place. I can't believe I've gone this long in life not knowing things considered everyday just a day's drive from where I've lived the majority of my adult life.

Another fascinating thing I've learned since moving here is that where there is now desert in NM, there used to be ocean!

That's why there is sand everywhere and the rock formations you see look just like you would see if you were walking the floor of an ocean. Minus the sky, doesn't this just look like something you'd find at the bottom of the sea?

(Photo source: Pixabay)

There are even some museums with fossils from that ocean period, which is definitely on my list of places to visit sometime.

From the University of New Mexico website:

During the Paleozoic, most of the North America was part of a large landmass called Pangaea. The state was covered by a vast shallow sea, from which large deposits of limestone, sandstone and shale accumulated. These limestone beds can now be found in many areas of New Mexico, often containing small marine invertebrate fossils such as brachiopods, crinoids and trilobites. During the later part of the Paleozoic, the ancestral Rocky Mountains formed, uplifting the central and northern part of the state. Toward the southern part of New Mexico, a great barrier reef developed. As the reef was cut off from the sea, the evaporation of the water left deposits of salt, potash and gypsum that can be found today. . . .

In the Mesozoic era . . . the inland sea once again returned and New Mexico was on the western shore of a great shallow ocean covering most of the central United States.

There are also a few lakes left in the state even now. (Granted this is still a dry, dry place, with only a month or two the entire year in which it rains at all, and snow in Winter that melts quickly. This is not what you would call a haven for beach lovers.)

It fascinates me to think that I am walking on what was once the bottom of the ocean. It also fascinates me to realize just how much I have yet to learn about this country I've called home my entire life. And then there's the world! What other wild and wonderful truths are out there, waiting to be learned of by more people?

Are there any surprising facts you've learned about the area you live in? Now I'm ready to have my mind blown.