Leighton Photography & Imaging

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  • East Pawnee Butte in the Pawnee National Grasslands of Northern Colorado. This fantastic geological feature was only made more beautiful by the numbers of pronghorn antelope and desert wildflowers found dotted around the region.
    East Pawnee Butte
  • East Pawnee Butte in the Pawnee National Grasslands of Northern Colorado. This fantastic geological feature was only made more beautiful by the numbers of pronghorn antelope and desert wildflowers found dotted around the region.
    East Pawnee Butte
  • East Pawnee Butte in the Pawnee National Grasslands of Northern Colorado. This fantastic geological feature was only made more beautiful by the numbers of pronghorn antelope and desert wildflowers found dotted around the region.
    East Pawnee Butte
  • This whole area was once an ancient shallow sea. These towering buttes of sandstone are all that remain after the surrounding rock and land were washed away by climate change. The rocks are still loaded with fossils of fish and seashells. Marine dinosaur skeletons have been found in region too!
    West Pawnee Butte
  • This whole area was once an ancient shallow sea. These towering buttes of sandstone are all that remain after the surrounding rock and land were washed away by climate change. The rocks are still loaded with fossils of fish and seashells. Marine dinosaur skeletons have been found in region too!
    West Pawnee Butte
  • This whole area was once an ancient shallow sea. These towering buttes of sandstone are all that remain after the surrounding rock and land were washed away by climate change. The rocks are still loaded with fossils of fish and seashells. Marine dinosaur skeletons have been found in region too!
    West Pawnee Butte
  • A view from atop Rattlesnake Mountain in Washington State. Maibox Peak to the left with Dirtybox Peak just to the right and behind it. On the right side is Mount Washington with Cedar Butte (the large hill) in the foreground. Between the mountains is a part of the Upper Snoqualmie Valley and the South Fork Snoqualmie River.
    Upper Snoqualmie Valley and Cascades
  • These fantastic cliffs are some of the only stand-out features in this remote part of northwestern Colorado.
    Pawnee Buttes
  • These fantastic cliffs are some of the only stand-out features in this remote part of northwestern Colorado.
    Pawnee Buttes
  • These fantastic cliffs are some of the only stand-out features in this remote part of northwestern Colorado.
    Pawnee Buttes
  • The Chisos Mountains of West Texas is the southernmost mountain range in the United States, and is surrounded by the Chihuahuan Desert on the US-Mexico border. Located wholly within the borders of Big Bend National Park, this incredible view of this ancient volcanic mountain range was photographed on a late spring afternoon as the sun began to set in the "golden hour".
    Chisos Mountains of West Texas
  • One of the many great rock formations in the Chisos Mountains in Western Texas' Big Bend National Park and is known as the "Mule Ear Peaks." These twin peaks  are formed from a part of a dike-like intrusion of relatively young rhyolite, and rise about 1040 feet (3,881 above sea level) above the desert floor.
    Mules Ears
  • Cerro Castellan - also known as Castolon Peak or Castellan Peak, is a conical volcanic mountain in West Texas that rises 1000 feet above the desert floor (3,293 feet above sea level) in Big Bend National Park. Cerro Castellan itself is part of an ancient series of summits once known as the Corazones Peaks that has since succumbed to millennia of erosion by wind, precipitation, searing heat and bitterly cold winters. <br />
Geologically, this ancient mountain range remnant is a high stack of volcanic rocks, including ash, lava, and tuffaceous rocks. It is capped by a dense lava flow underlain by various tuffs and basalts. A somewhat northwest fault cuts the eastern face of Cerro Castellan. Although little vegetation grows on the sheer cliffs and steep, pointed profile of its peak, the lower slopes of Cerro Castellan support a sparse growth of Chihuahuan Desert scrub, including most prominently such characteristic species as creosote bush and ocotillo.
    Cerro Castellan
  • Cerro Castellan - also known as Castolon Peak or Castellan Peak, is a conical volcanic mountain in West Texas that rises 1000 feet above the desert floor (3,293 feet above sea level) in Big Bend National Park. Cerro Castellan itself is part of an ancient series of summits once known as the Corazones Peaks that has since succumbed to millennia of erosion by wind, precipitation, searing heat and bitterly cold winters. <br />
Geologically, this ancient mountain range remnant is a high stack of volcanic rocks, including ash, lava, and tuffaceous rocks. It is capped by a dense lava flow underlain by various tuffs and basalts. A somewhat northwest fault cuts the eastern face of Cerro Castellan. Although little vegetation grows on the sheer cliffs and steep, pointed profile of its peak, the lower slopes of Cerro Castellan support a sparse growth of Chihuahuan Desert scrub, including most prominently such characteristic species as creosote bush and ocotillo.
    Cerro Castellan
  • This incredible wild and harsh desert near the Mexican town of Sonoyta is deep in the Ajo Mountain range in Southern Pima County, Arizona. Saguaro cacti, gila monsters, rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas, a searing sun are staples of this dangerous part of the Sonoran Desert, and there is a long, deep history among the remnants of the Tohono O'odham Nation who thrived here for centuries, and the ancestral Puebloans who created a vibrant culture here before them.
    Diablo Mountains, Arizona
  • Standing at 7,325 ft, Casa Grande (Spanish for "Big House") is the fourth highest peak in Texas' Chisos Mountains and is found in the heart of Big Bend National Park.
    Casa Grande in the High Chisos Mountains
  • Saguaro cacti stand tall as sunset fades in the Puerto Blanco Mountains in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument along the US-Mexico border in Arizona. Truly one of my favorite places in the Sonoran Desert.
    Sunset in the Puerto Blanco Mountains
  • Some of the amazingly beautiful rock formations photographed here at dusk in Arches National Park in Eastern Utah.
    Moab Rock Formations
  • The famous Delicate Arch stands 65 feet (20 meters) above its sandstone base in the surrounding canyons and ravines in Arches National Park in eastern Utah's Moab Desert.
    Delicate Arch
  • The famous Delicate Arch stands 65 feet (20 meters) above its sandstone base in the surrounding canyons and ravines in Arches National Park in eastern Utah's Moab Desert.
    Delicate Arch
  • The famous Delicate Arch stands 65 feet (20 meters) above its sandstone base in the surrounding canyons and ravines in Arches National Park in eastern Utah's Moab Desert.
    Delicate Arch
  • The famous Delicate Arch stands 65 feet (20 meters) above its sandstone base in the surrounding canyons and ravines in Arches National Park in eastern Utah's Moab Desert.
    Delicate Arch
  • The famous Delicate Arch stands 65 feet (20 meters) above its sandstone base in the surrounding canyons and ravines in Arches National Park in eastern Utah's Moab Desert.
    Delicate Arch
  • Ancient basalt columns are a typical sight in Central Washington. They are formed by cooling lava, forming cracks that create these columns by contracting. The faster the lava cools, the thinner the columns. These thick columns cooled gradually over some time. The presence of the lichens that now cover the stony face is an indicator of very good air quality and a lack of pollution.
    Lichen-Covered Basalt Cliff in Cowic..nyon
  • Sunset is almost always a dramatic show of light and shadow, as witnessed here in Cowiche Canyon, just west of Yakima, WA. Strong beams of sunlight beautifully backlit these desert wildflowers (Carey's balsamroot).
    Sunset in the Sagebrush Desert
  • This rock was once molten lava forced from deep within the earth as it covered most of Central Washington, up to three miles deep in some places. Many thousands of years of erosion, weathering and exposure to the elements has left us with massive crumbling rock formations like this basalt rock wall.
    Rocky Basalt Bluffs of Cowiche Canyon
  • Cerro Castellan - also known as Castolon Peak or Castellan Peak, is a conical volcanic mountain in West Texas that rises 1000 feet above the desert floor (3,293 feet above sea level) in Big Bend National Park. Cerro Castellan itself is part of an ancient series of summits once known as the Corazones Peaks that has since succumbed to millennia of erosion by wind, precipitation, searing heat and bitterly cold winters. <br />
Geologically, this ancient mountain range remnant is a high stack of volcanic rocks, including ash, lava, and tuffaceous rocks. It is capped by a dense lava flow underlain by various tuffs and basalts. A somewhat northwest fault cuts the eastern face of Cerro Castellan. Although little vegetation grows on the sheer cliffs and steep, pointed profile of its peak, the lower slopes of Cerro Castellan support a sparse growth of Chihuahuan Desert scrub, including most prominently such characteristic species as creosote bush and ocotillo.
    Cerro Castellan
  • Cerro Castellan - also known as Castolon Peak or Castellan Peak, is a conical volcanic mountain in West Texas that rises 1000 feet above the desert floor (3,293 feet above sea level) in Big Bend National Park. Cerro Castellan itself is part of an ancient series of summits once known as the Corazones Peaks that has since succumbed to millennia of erosion by wind, precipitation, searing heat and bitterly cold winters. <br />
Geologically, this ancient mountain range remnant is a high stack of volcanic rocks, including ash, lava, and tuffaceous rocks. It is capped by a dense lava flow underlain by various tuffs and basalts. A somewhat northwest fault cuts the eastern face of Cerro Castellan. Although little vegetation grows on the sheer cliffs and steep, pointed profile of its peak, the lower slopes of Cerro Castellan support a sparse growth of Chihuahuan Desert scrub, including most prominently such characteristic species as creosote bush and ocotillo.
    Cerro Castellan
  • El Capitan in West Texas' Guadalupe Mountains (100 miles east of El Paso) is the world's premier example of an exposed fossil reef from the Permian Era, dated at about 260 million years old - much older than the golden age of dinosaurs. This whole part of Texas back in this time was once covered in a shallow sea that geologists call the Delaware Sea, in a time when all of Earth's continents were still joined into one supercontinent that we call Pangaea. The entire top of El Capitan is made of limestone formed from the fossilized remains of aquatic plant and animal remains such as corals, algae, shellfish and plankton, and now stands at just above 8000 feet above sea level. The base is formed by layer upon layer of sand laid down over millions of years, in the manner you would expect from the ocean floor resulting in a very typical sedimentary rock formation,  further eroded by millions of years of desert heat, rain, abrasion and wind.
    El Capitan, West Texas
  • Sea stacks tower above the sitka spruce that line the Pacific coastline of Washington's Rialto Beach and Olympic National Park.
    Sea Stacks and Coastline at Rialto B..gton
  • Golden hour near the Ajo Mountains in the Sonoran Desert! Big skies, lowlands filled with saguaro and organ pipe cacti, and loads of wildlife and incredible wildflowers - springtime in Arizona is about as beautiful as nature gets!
    Ajo Mountains
  • Once an ancient Permian ocean reef, these hills and cliffs that are part of the Guadalupe Mountains in Northwestern Texas near Salt Flat are an example of one the world's very best and oldest fossilized coral reefs. Now part of the Chihuahuan Desert the area is teeming with sea life fossils.
    McKittrick Canyon in the Guadalupe M..ains
  • The famous Delicate Arch stands 65 feet (20 meters) above its sandstone base in the surrounding canyons and ravines in Arches National Park in eastern Utah's Moab Desert.
    Delicate Arch
  • The eastern part of the Cascades mountains in Washington state couldn't be more different from the western side. Instead of wet, green and cloudy slopes, there are dry, columnar igneous rock structures, desert scrub plants and big skies!
    Basalt Cliffs at White Pass
  • The Audubon’s yellow-rumped warbler is a subspecies of the common yellow-rumped warbler and is found primarily on North America’s west coast. A bit of confusion exists in regards to the exact taxonomy of this species, and it’s very likely to be changed into its own distinct species. This adult breeding male was photographed in Central Washington above the Columbia River in Kittitas County at the top of a cliff several hundred feet high.
    Audubon's Yellow-rumped Warbler
  • As the vastness of the open Canadian prairies butt into the Rocky Mountains, vastly different habitats converge, resulting in an enormous amount of variety in both flora and fauna. Weather patterns are disrupted when open plains meet up with towering rocky towers of rock, which means more rainfall, resulting in mountain erosion giving minerals, shade and shelter that promotes the growth of thick rich forests that teem with wildlife. Such a place is seen here in Waterton Lakes National Park in southern Alberta, Canada on a spectacular summer sunset over a marsh.
    Where the Canadian Prairies Meet the..kies
  • Very common throughout western and central North America, the wavyleaf thistle can grow in many different habitats and can grow to a height of 6 feet. This one was growing in the plains of Northwestern Colorado near the Pawnee Buttes.
    Wavyleaf Thistle
  • The brittle prickly pear is likely the most widespread cactus in North America. It's range includes the five western Canadian provinces, all of the western American states, and continues south well into Mexico. Because it can be found close to the Arctic Circle, it is also the most northerly cactus in North America. This one was found in flower growing near the Pawnee Buttes in northeastern Colorado.
    Brittle Prickly Pear