Shiprock
Encyclopedia : S : SH : SHI : Shiprock
| style="border-top:1px solid #999966; border-right:1px solid #999966" bgcolor=#e7dcc3 width=85 | Prominence: | style="border-top:1px solid #999966" width=220 | 1,583 ft (483 m) |-
|- | style="border-top:1px solid #999966; border-right:1px solid #999966" bgcolor=#e7dcc3 width=85 | Coordinates: | style="border-top:1px solid #999966" width=220 | [36°41′16″N, 108°50′12″W] |-
|- | style="border-top:1px solid #999966; border-right:1px solid #999966" bgcolor=#e7dcc3 width=85 | Topo map: | style="border-top:1px solid #999966" width=220 | USGS Ship Rock Quadrangle |-
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Shiprock, or Shiprock Peak or Ship Rock (Diné: Tsé Bit' A'í, " winged rock") is a rock formation rising nearly 1,800 feet (540 meters) above the high-desert plain on the Navajo reservation, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of the northern New Mexico town of Shiprock. The name derives from its resemblance to an enormous 19th-century Clipper ship.
Ship Rock (the name preferred in some geologic studies) is composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called "minette." It is the erosional remnant of the throat of a volcano, and the volcanic breccia formed in a diatreme. The exposed rock probably was originally formed 2,500-3000 feet (750-1,000 meters) below the earth's surface, but it was exposed after millions of years of erosion. Wall-like sheets of minette, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age determinations of the minette establish that these volcanic rocks solidified about 27 million years ago. Ship Rock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field; the field includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 25 million years ago. Agathla, also called "El Capitan," is another prominent volcanic neck of this field.
Shiprock's sheer walls make it tempting for serious mountain climbers. After years of standing as one of the continent's great unsolved climbing problems, it was first scaled in 1939, by a Sierra Club party including David R. Brower. Since then at least seven routes have been climbed on the peak, all of them of great technical difficulty.
However, questions of legality, ownership, and religious significance have always made access to Shiprock dubious. In particular, the Navajo have a number of legends associated with Shiprock, and consider it sacred, so climbing it is currently illegal.
Tony Hillerman's mystery novel The Fallen Man centers on the discovery of a long-dead climber found atop Shiprock.
References
- Audrey Selkeld, editor, World Mountaineering, Bulfinch, 1998.
- Steven C. Semken, The Navajo Volcanic Field, in Volcanology in New Mexico, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin 18, p. 79-83, 2001. ISSN 1524-4156
- Paul T. Delaney, Ship Rock, New Mexico: The vent of a violent volcanic eruption, Geological Society of America Centennial Field Guide -- Rocky Mountain Section, p 411-415, 1987.
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