Painting the Bluffs

If you travel to Painted Bluffs Provincial Park on the north shore of Kamloops Lake, you can hike into the bluffs, and when you do, you will be stunned by the "other-wordly" feeling of the shapes and colors in front of you. Eroded, sinuous multi-colored slopes drain the slopes above, channeling water into one stream gully above the alluvial fan. You can hike up onto the narrow ridges on the slopes, finding various vantage spots for your explorations.

What do we know about this area?

Very little geological information is available on this area. What we do know is that the bluffs have distinctive multi-colored rocks and soils on an intrusion of batholithic rocks.

A batholith is a large zone of molten rock under the surface of the earth that cools over time.
An intrusion is an arm of the batholith that has risen to the surface and cooled, forming minerals in the process.
Batholithic intrusions often stand out (are discordant) from the local geology.

The bluffs have been eroded into distinctively-shaped barren ridges and gullies, all leading down to a fluvial fan.

Fluvial fans are formed by the movement of water bringing materials down stream.
Alluvial fans are formed when a stream course suddently widens and flattens. Materials are deposited in a fan shape.

The hillsides surrounding are covered in big sagebrush and bluebunch wheatgrass. California bighorn sheep frequent the ridges. The colors off the bluffs are intriguing. Deposits of mercury, copper, and cinnabar have altered the hues of these materials.

Mercury was raised to the surface through the intrusions and cooled in cinnabar formations. Most mercury deposits around the world are found in cinnabar.
Cinnabar (mercuric sulphide) is the common ore of mercury.
Cinnabar is usually brick red to crimson in color. It is an ingredient used in red pigments.
Copper is an ore common to the area (ie Copper Creek).
Copper compounds are often found as salts of copper, and impart a green or blue color.