Photo of the Day 383

Santa Lucia Range, Big Sur, California, 2000

Photograph by Frans Lanting

Greenery takes hold in crevasses and other spots on a denuded mountain in the Santa Lucia Range. Geologists suspect that the range emerged from two great blocks of rock that were riven by faults, including the San Andreas to the east.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Big Sur: California's Elemental Coast," August 2000, National Geographic magazine)