The road at Cimarron in Curecanti National Recreation Area leads to the Morrow Point Dam Overlook, and travels through some fine examples of gneiss, the predominant rock in the Black Canyon. Gneiss (pronounced 'nice') has bands, layers, or even lenses of blocky crystals such as feldspar, alternated with bands of a flat, plate-like mineral such as mica.Gneiss represents some of the most advanced stages of metamorphosis with some of the most intense temperatures and pressures. In fact, in some places, the rock has actually been partially melted, and the melt was injected, or squeezed into the layers of the remaining solid portions of the gneiss, creating a type of gneiss known as migmatite.