| The world-famous Red Cliffs along Highway 14, at Red Rock Canyon State Park, Kern County, California, backdrop for many Hollywood movies and commercials. The sensationally colored strata belong to the late Miocene Dove Spring Formation of the Ricardo Group, roughly 10 million years old; at the very top is a resistant volcanic tuff breccia. Along the cliff-face, the prominent red bands are channel sandstones, deposited in ancient streams and river channels; the whitish bands represent tuffaceous sandstones, sedimentary material that was subjected to volcanic contaminants; the grayish bands are beds of sandstone that were deposited along great floodplains. |