| Cajon Pass famed "Mormon Rocks" are a series of cemented sandstone beds much more resistant to erosion than the surrounding gravel and silt sands, giving them a pockmarked appearance. Officially called the Rock Candy Mountains, the strange rock formations are one of the youngest and most active geological regions in North America. Formed by the overlapping of the Baja Plate and the North American Plate, the Mormon Rocks (so nicknamed because this was the preferred route of Amasa Lymand and Charles Rich, who led a band of Mormon settlers from Salt Lake City across the Mojave Desert in 1851) are a visible indicator of the San Andreas Fault (where the two aforementioned tectonic plates collide). BNSF Railway ethanol train G-RAVWAT7-06A (Ravenna NE to Watson CA), led by Dash 9-44CW 5200, threads its way through "the Rocks" on November 13, 2010. |