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Black Dragon Canyon
You have climbed from the valley floor to the top of the San Rafael Reef in eight minutes. The road is steep but the rock layers it cuts through tilt at an even greater angle. The younger overlaying rock has been eroded, so you are standing on rock much older than those at Green River. Anticlines are odd that way. You have gained a thousand feet of elevation, but have lost 50 million years of geologic time. The canyon in front of you is cut into some of the oldest rocks you will encounter on your journey across the Swell. These sedimentary layers were deposited before the Permian extinction over 250 million years ago. The extinction is the largest, most widespread known to modern science.
Over 95 percent of all species the living on Earth were wiped out. Behind you is the awesome underbelly of the huge "flat iron" shaped walls of the San Rafael Reef. The striking red cliffs are stained red by the presence of iron oxide. The depth of the color depends on the amount of iron oxide in the stone. |