OUR DYNAMIC LANDSCAPE: GEOLOGY, CULTURE, HISTORY — THE VIEW FROM CLAYTON'S OVERLOOK AT THE CHIHUAHUAN DESERT NATURE CENTER

At the 2004 Annual Meeting in Denver we presented a talk entitled The Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute’s 360° Educational Platform: A Geological Pavilion to Take Advantage of a 360° Visual Experience. The talk presented plans to design, construct, and install an interpretative exhibit on the highest point at CDRI’s Nature Center.

Here we would like to present the finalized exhibit that opened to the public in May of this year. This place-based exhibit is displayed on a uniquely adapted, open-air, octagonal platform that takes advantage of an extraordinary 360° panorama and divides the full panorama into eight individual views. The interpretative panels combine photographic images, line drawings, and geological overlays for each of the views with geological maps, cross-sections, close-up images of particular features, and concise text. The over-all theme of the exhibit is our dynamic landscape and how the landscape is the result of the balance of constructive forces building it up and destructive forces tearing it down. This theme is developed progressively through the individual panels.

The views provide spectacular examples of the landscape development and the interpretive panels illustrate the geological processes and history involved; as well as conveying how geologists study, map, and interpret the processes and piece together the history of the area. In addition to the presentation of the underlying geology controlling the landscape, the exhibit illustrates how geology has influenced the cultural and historical development of the area.

The information in the exhibit is multi-layered. The casual visitor, primarily interested in the aesthetic view, can learn the names of major landscape features. Visitors interested in the cultural landscape will learn about the history of the region, as well as the role that regional geology played in the location of cultural features such as the old San Antonio-El Paso road, historic Fort Davis, and the McDonald Observatory. Visitors with a geological background can use the geological maps, cross sections, and image overlays—all of which use the same formation/stratigraphic color codes—to drill deeper into the geology of the Davis Mountains region.