Search This Blog

Followers

Saturday, January 11, 2014

A Little Research

Almost to the sunlight
After exploring an arroyo with the Beckster we altered our return track to take a photo of the seismology shack.  Yesterday I contacted a seismology professor at the local university (NMSU) and asked about the shack and towers.  He told me that the shack hadn't been used in over thirty years, and the towers weren't related to it.  He thought the towers might have been part of an old laser experiment, but he wasn't sure.  Now I have to do further research.
Plato's analogy of Becca and Packrat

Looking back the way we came

Entering a huge arroyo

Soaptree Yucca

About midway to the Crosscut Trail

The seismology shack and its concomitant "artwork"

Experimental towers not related to seismology

The tall towers closest to Dripping Springs Road

2 comments:

packrat said...

After some intensive internet research I found this infomation from the 12/06/2010 edition of the Farmington Daily Times (based on a Las Cruces Sun-News report):

LAS CRUCES - A trifecta of mysterious white towers west of A Mountain, marked with a peeling sign warning trespassers away from experiments in progress, was reduced to a duo Thursday.

Project Manager Frank Rocha says the old New Mexico State University scaffolding was built in 1962 and used as recently as five years ago for physical science laboratory experiments that helped develop antennas for airplanes and missiles. And, into the '90s, the trespassing ban was enforced by a manned guard shack, which was eventually pulled.

The northernmost, 75-foot tower demolished last week came down because the owner of the land it sat on wanted NMSU to begin paying a lease. The other two, which are 95- and 65-feet tall, will be turned over to law enforcement, possibly to be used for police training, Rocha said.

"There's nothing on there," he said. "It's just a wooden staircase, that's about all that's left."

Dr. K said...

That's a lot of abandoned science experiments.

Low Country and then High

This & next:  Pyrrhuloxia (aka Desert Cardinal) Willow and I did our regular hike this morning, returning afterward to finish packing fo...