Berberville’s Hills Are Alive

I just looked unto the hills, and remembered that I haven’t said anything about my surroundings. There are mountains on every side of me that I can see from my stoop. I’ll head up on the roof in a minute and see if it’s true up there, too. They are folded and faulted in ways that would make any structural geologist’s head spin all the way off her shoulders. Recumbent folds, thrust faults, overturned beds, anticlines, synclines…all these terms from Geo 11 and Structure resurfaced today as I rode across the High Atlas Mountains in the tranzit (shuttle bus from area villages to souq towns). Someday in the next two years, inshallah, I’ll bike or hike the 140 k to SouqTown so I can take pictures of all these textbook-worthy places.

I can understand why the folks who came here on field trip described it as ugly – but I beg to differ. The mountains are naked, yes – no trees, no grass, hardly any shrubs – so they lack the organic beauty of the Appalachians…but these exposed rock layers are a geonerd’s dream. The sere hillsides are more reminiscent of the Black Hills than Memorial Hill, and the muted tones pall against the startling hues of the Painted Desert…but this place is beautiful.