Red Rock Coulee
Finding out about ‘Red Rock Coulee’ was such a gift!
Just like at Horseshoe Canyon, when you drive down a fairly usual scenic road for the region and then you make one turn and ‘BAM’! Your world has changed by what you come across, one could never guess that driving down a simple, prairie road would lead to such a crazy change in topography.
The large spherical boulders at Red Rock Coulee are from the Late Cretaceous ) Bearpaw Formation, which makes up the bedrock in the area.
The formation lies close to surface under a thin layer of soil, and it has been sculpted by erosion, exposing the concretions and creating areas of badlands and hoodoos.
The dark gray shale, with beds of greenish and gray sandstone and siltstone, pale grey bentonite, and brown ironstone in the bedrock create bands of color across the exposed badlands.
The boulders formed after the sediments had been deposited, when mineral cement, primarily calcite and ironstone, precipitated around bits of shell, bone, and other biological debris.
The concretions grew outward as circulating waters deposited more layers of cement. The cement makes the concretions resistant to erosion compared to the surrounding sediments, and the iron minerals give them their reddish colour.
Close examination of the concretions may reveal traces of the original bedding and other sedimentary structures. There may also be "growth rings" produced by the layers of cement, as well as remnants of the fossils.
We were so lucky to be the only ones there for a long time. I changed into my running shoes, donned my hat, and grabbed my walking sticks and thank goodness I had all these things at the ready because the ground was quite steep and slippery with shale.
It was just gorgeous and fascinating to see these giant, round boulders in this fairly, small area and then miles and miles of regular pasture beyond them. Such a wonderful phenomena!
There happened to be one, lonely picnic table on a hill so we grabbed our Tile Rummy game and played for a while . It was incredibly hot again today ( easily 35 degrees) but a slight breeze made it doable.
