BGuthrie Photos: UT -- Canyonlands Natl Park

UT -- Canyonlands Natl Park:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Description of Pictures: Two separate trips into Canyonlands:

(030528) Island In The Sky (the northern side of the park)
(030529) The Needles (the southern side of the park)

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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[4] CLAND_030528_032.JPG	[5] CLAND_030528_066.JPG	[6] CLAND_030528_067.JPG	[7] CLAND_030528_100.JPG	[8] CLAND_030528_104.JPG
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[30] CLAND_030529_073.JPG	[31] CLAND_030529_095.JPG	[32] CLAND_030529_112.JPG	[33] CLAND_030529_122.JPG	[34] CLAND_030529_145.JPG
[35] CLAND_030529_153.JPG	[36] CLAND_030529_155.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. CLAND_030528_066.JPG: This and the next few pictures are taken of and through Mesa Arch
2. CLAND_030528_146.JPG: This picture pretty well corresponds to the map that follows in the next picture. The white outcrop on the right is called Cleopatra's Chair and is about 10 miles away (it's actually located outside of the park). Ekker Butte, the pin-cushion-looking thing toward the left foreground, is about 8-1/2 miles away. The river that you see is the Green River and it's about 3 miles away. As you can see, visibility wasn't all that good.
3. CLAND_030528_184.JPG: You can see tracks on the white rim sandstone. The roads and seismic lines seen here were constructed in the 1950's in a hectic search for uranium and oil, something that would have allowed industrial forces to preclude the creation of the national park. Fifty years ago, the roads are still there because the terrain changes so slowly here. Desert plants see less than ten inches of rain a year here and most of it evaporates very quickly. They'll take decades to recover from the abuses of industry.
4. CLAND_030529_021.JPG: This photo was taken from the Needles Overlook, an area maintained outside of the park by the Bureau of Land Management.
5. CLAND_030529_043.JPG: The jagged edges are what results in the name "the needles" for this section of the park.
6. CLAND_030529_155.JPG: Canyonlands National Park
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Canyonlands National Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canyonlands National Park, located near Moab, Utah and Arches National Park, was designated as a National Park on September 12, 1964. The park covers 527.5 mi� (1,366 km�).

Canyons carved into the Colorado Plateau by the Colorado River and Green River partition the area into three major districts:

* Island in the Sky to the north
* The Needles to the south-east
* The Maze to the west

In addition to the three major districts there is a detached unit to the north, called the Horseshoe Canyon Unit.

Geography:

Island in the Sky is a broad and level mesa to the north of the park between Colorado and Green river with many overlooks over the White Rim, a sandstone bench 1200 feet (365 m) below the Island, and the rivers which are another 1000 feet (304 m) below the White Rim.

The Needles district is named after the red and white banded rock pinnacles which dominate it but various other forms of naturally sculptured rock like canyons, grabens, potholes, and a number of arches similar to the ones of the nearby Arches National Park can be found as well. Unlike Arches National Park, however, where many arches are accessible by short to moderate hikes or even by car, most of the arches in the Needles district lie in backcountry canyons and take long hikes or four-wheel-drive trips to reach.

This area was once home of the Ancestral Puebloan Indians of which many traces can be found. Although the items and tools they used have been largely taken away by looters, many of their stone and mud dwellings are well-preserved. The Ancestral Puebloans also left traces in the form of petroglyphs, most notably on the so-called Newspaper Rock near the Visitor Center at the entrance of this district.

The Maze district west of the Colorado and Green rivers is the most remote and inaccessible section.

The detached unit to the north, the Horseshoe Canyon unit, contains panels of rock art made by hunter-gatherers of the Late Archaic Period who predated the Ancestral Puebloans.

Geology:

Main article: Geology of the Canyonlands area

A subsiding basin and nearby uplifting mountain range (the Uncompahgre) existed in the area in Pennsylvanian time. Seawater trapped in the subsiding basin created thick evaporite deposits by Mid Pennsylvanian. This, along with eroded material from the nearby mountain range, become the Paradox Formation, itself a part of the Hermosa Group. Paradox salt beds started to flow later in the Pennsylvanian and probably continued to move until the end of the Jurassic. Some scientists believe Upheaval Dome was created from Paradox salt bed movement, creating a salt dome, but more modern studies show that the meteorite theory is more likely to be correct.

A warm shallow sea again flooded the region near the end of the Pennsylvanian. Fossil-rich limestones, sandstones, and shales of the gray-colored Honaker Trail Formation resulted. A period of erosion then ensued, creating a break in the geologic record called an unconformity. Early in the Permian an advancing sea laid down the Halgaito Shale. Coastal lowlands later returned to the area, forming the Elephant Canyon Formation.

Large alluvial fans filled the basin where it met the Uncompahgre Mountains, creating the Cutler red beds of iron-rich arkose sandstone. Underwater sand bars and sand dunes on the coast inter-fingered with the red beds and later became the white-colored cliff-forming Cedar Mesa Sandstone. Brightly-colored oxidized muds were then deposited, forming the Organ Rock Shale. Coastal sand dunes and marine sand bars once again became dominate, creating the White Rim Sandstone.

A second unconformity was created after the Permian sea retreated. Flood plains on an expansive lowland covered the eroded surface and mud built up in tidal flats, creating the Moenkopi Formation. Erosion returned, forming a third unconformity. The Chinle Formation was then laid down on top of this eroded surface.

Increasingly dry climates dominated the Triassic. Therefore, sand in the form of sand dunes invaded and became the Wingate Sandstone. For a time climatic conditions became wetter and streams cut channels through the sand dunes, forming the Kayenta Formation. Arid conditions returned to the region with a vengeance; A large desert spread over much of western North America and later became the Navajo Sandstone. A fourth unconformity was created by a period of erosion.

Mud flats returned, forming the Carmel Formation and the Entrada Sandstone was laid down next. A long period of erosion stripped away most of the San Rafael Group in the area along with any formations that may have been laid down in the Cretaceous period.

The Laramide orogeny started to uplift the Rocky Mountains 70 million years ago and with it the Canyonlands region. Erosion intensified and when the Colorado River Canyon reached the salt beds of the Paradox Formation the overlying strata extended toward the river canyon, forming features such as The Grabens. Increased precipitation during the ice ages of the Pleistocene quickened the rate of canyon excavation along with other erosion. Similar types of erosion are ongoing, but occur at a slower rate.
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Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].