We didn’t wake up until 9:15! No one complained. We foresook
breakfast and piled in the jeep. First, we drove through the section
out beyond the bridge over the Río Calchaquí. It still
seemed like it went on forever. As we returned, however, I could
see that the road runs roughly along strike for much of the distance. I've
already sampled the upper 5 km of section here and just need to collect
rocks from the lower 3 km. We drove back to town and up the rough
road by the cemetery to the shrine near the base of the section.
We got within 30 m of the base of the section but were prevented from reaching
it by a 3 m dry waterfall. The strata were way too coarse to work
with but we did manage to find 12 sites in the lowest 700m so maybe we’ll
get something out of it. We did a long lateral offset to the road
just outside of town. We established where we would begin in the morning
just as darkness fell.
 |
The white and orange strata comprise the base of the
Tertiary sedimentary
section. They were deposited on top of Lower Cambrian
low-grade
metamorphic rocks of the Puncoviscana Formation. A depositional
hiatus
of more than 500 million years is present between the
Cambrian and Tertiary
rocks seen here. |
 |
Headward erosion cut these veryical walls at the
base of the Tertiary strata above the Angastaco
cemetery. We couldn't reach the absolute base
because of a dry vertical waterfall. This photo was
taken within the orange strata seen in the photo
above. |
Back in town, we went to one of the food tiendas. Brian and Rich started
resupplying the junk food supply. I noticed that they had several liter
bottles of Cerveza Salta Negra.We bought all of the dark beer and headed
back to our pensión. We sat around drinking beer until dinner at
9:00 at the ACA Hosteria. Service was slow but the meal was much
better than the previous night.
One thing I don’t remember about this place is the wind.
It has been strong since we arrived. The days and nights have been
pleasantly warm. I remember spending some very cold nights in this town.
Most night in the past required us to drain the water from the radiator--Argentines
donMay 8, 2007 we wouldn't
need to worry about our vehicle anyhow. |