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A geologic map of Yosemite National Park. El Capitan Granite is a type of granite (also see granodiorite), in a large area near El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, California, United States. The granite forms part of the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite (also known as Tuolumne Batholith), one of the four major intrusive suites within the Sierra Nevada.
El Capitan is composed almost entirely of a pale, coarse-grained granite approximately 100 MYA (million years old). In addition to El Capitan, this granite forms most of the rock features of the western portions of Yosemite Valley. A separate intrusion of igneous rock, the Taft Granite, forms the uppermost portions of the cliff face.
Large, relatively unjointed volumes of granite form domes such as Half Dome and monoliths like the 3,604 ft (1,098 m) high El Capitan. Closely spaced joints lead to the creation of columns, pillars, and pinnacles such as Washington Column, Cathedral Spires, and Split Pinnacle.
For a rare, if not lucky, few days a year, Yosemite National Park’s famed El Capitan granite cliff converts into what looks like an active volcano jutting 3,000 feet above the valley floor.
El Capitan is a prominent granite cliff that looms over the valley, and is a rock climbing favorite because of its sheer size, diverse climbing routes, and year-round accessibility. Granite domes such as Sentinel Dome and Half Dome rise 3,000 and 4,800 feet (910 and 1,460 m), respectively, above the valley floor.
The valley is about 7.5 mi (12.1 km) long and 3,000–3,500 ft (910–1,070 m) deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan, and densely forested with pines. The valley is drained by the Merced River, and a multitude of streams and waterfalls flow into it, including Tenaya, Illilouette, Yosemite and Bridalveil Creeks.
El Capitan. Almost all of the landforms in the Yosemite area are cut from the granitic rock of the Sierra Nevada Batholith (a batholith is a large mass of intrusive igneous rock that formed deep below the surface). [2] About 5% of the park's landforms (mostly in its eastern margin near Mount Dana) are metamorphosed volcanic and sedimentary ...
LOS ANGELES, June 2 (Reuters) - Two climbers fell to their deaths on Saturday from the face of the towering El Capitan granite rock formation at Yosemite National Park in northern California, the ...