The Formation Of Canyonlands

All three sections of Canyonlands has its own distinct features that attract so much attention every year but what many would love to know is how has this immense landscape come to be?

Rock Canyon is an excellent site for geologic research and has been investigated by geologists from around Utah and neighboring states. With outstanding extrusions of quartzite, tillite and limestone, it’s a favored destination for hikers, rock climbers and scientists. The quartzite is considered the most unique feature of Rock Canyon as it’s one of the few clear and distinct examples of the sedimentary processes involved with a shallow marine setting. The tillite beneath the quartzite draws attention to the ancient glaciers to the past. In conjunction with the active Wasatch Fault found at its doorstep, Rock Canyon is an important place in Utah for geologists.

As mentioned before, water was a major agent in the creation of these caves. Geologists say that the formation of these caves can be traced back all the way to the Cambrian period which was about six hundred million years ago. Back in the time which is present day Nevada and western Utah, the land was covered by shallow, warm, inland sea. There were msny thick layers of sediments located at the sea bottom. Some of the layers consisted of silt, others were sand, and there were others that were made up of a limy substance that came from minute shell creatures’ decomposed bodies. In one of those limy layers was to formulate into limestone to create the Lehman Caves. That limy layer was compacted by the weight of other latter sediments deposited on top of it. Since there was so much pressure, eventually that limy layer started to turn into limestone. Limestone is a cystalline or bioclastic rock that is composed of calcite. Later on as there was an increase in heat and pressure, some of the limestone formulated into some low-grade marble. Marble is a nonfoliated, metamorphic that is composed of calcite and/or dolomite. Its texture is fine to coarse. According to “The Formation of Lehman Caves”, “Later, great forces under the earth’s crust caused the layers of the rock to buckle. This mountain range (the buckle) rose gradually until its peaks were thousands of feet above the valley

Next, these rocks undergo erosion, which is the process of moving sediments from one place to another. Then, these sediments are deposited all at one place and over time they start to converge and cement as layers which are also known as strata. As time keeps going, new sediments deposit and cement together over old ones forming new layers. This is a repetitive process that eventually build up layers to make up a Sedimentary rock. Approximately 40 major sedimentary rock layers exposed in the Grand Canyon National Park area range in age from about 200 million to nearly 2 billion years old. As you can see, sedimentary rock formation takes an excessive amount of time.

The site is of major geoconservation significance because of being the only place on earth where rocks from the earth’s mantle - 6 km

Cenozoic sedimentary rocks predominated to the west and east of the central mountain while plutonic rocks predominated in the peninsular ranges. The irregular contact between these geologic regions reflects the ancient topography of the area. The ancient oceanic crustal plate created an archipelago of a volcanic island. The former's subduction created immense volumes of magma. This resulted to the congealation of plutonic rock in the crust. The local rocks that existed before the tectonic forces uplifted, and erosion capped the deeply buried plutonic rocks that formed a steep and rugged mountains coastline, similar to that present one, which in the west coast of south America.

For example, The appalachian Mountains were formed by a massive continental collision over 300 million years ago. According to page 88 in my science notebook, the rocks in the Chattooga River is evidence of the continental collision. Mountains are formed when two continental plates collide, and form the mountains. The Appalachian mountains, were formed during Pangea. The North American Plate and the African Plate collided. When this happened the Appalachian Mountains were formed. These mountains then grew bigger, but as soon as it started growing, it also eroded. Erosion and

Little Cottonwood Canyon is a site bursting with geological history, rock formations earthquake potential on the fault, prehistoric glacial formations, landslides, and many hazards associated with it. The Wasatch fault is bound to have a enormous earthquake in the future and has left behind numerous scars. The mountains have been engraved by glacial formations dated back to the Ice Age (~14,000 years ago). Rock falls and landslides have left hefty boulders as indication of erosion and moisture in the rocks. The hazards on this mountain range are mass wasting, radon, earthquakes, and flooding of Little Cottonwood Creek.

A description of the grand canyon rock layers would include the Colorado River running at the bottom of the inner gorge with flats on both sides which consist of tapeat sandstone layers. There is also the Vishnu Complex, consisting of rocks that have been changed by heat and are buried at the lowest layers. These are tilted and are called the “Grand Canyon Supergroup” the Grand Canyon supergroups are at least 12,000 ft in thickness. These rocks or (the “Inner Gorge”) are usally steep and narrow with hard deep cuts in the lower tilted layers which raise above sea level.

One of the major things noticeable from the cross section is that quite a few of the rock layers are over turned, where the older rock layers are above the newer rock layers. This is seen in the contact between the Quartz Monzonite of Papoose Flat and the Campito Formation which is also a disconformity. Next there is some fault zones separating the Camptio, Poleta, and Harkless formations. We then see some more overturned layers with the contacts between Saline Spring Valley Formation (lower and upper members) above the Mule Spring Formation along with some inferred folding. With a normal fault separating the inferred folding event, we see where the overturning occurs. In between the Cambrian layers we see Tertiary Basalt nonconformities also being folded, thus with that we know that the folding event was more recent than the formation of the Basalt. Next there is a large Basalt field with a spot of the Harkless formation. Again we see over tuning as the Basalt field ends there are the Devonian and Mississippian rock Layers on top of the basalt. Separating these overturned layers from the Harkless Formation and the Saline valley Formation (upper member), which are not overturned, is a thrust fault. From this information, there was a major stress event sometime after the Tertiary period causing the rock layers to fold and overturn. And from this stress event and from the folding, normal and thrust faults are formed. Finally we see that there were alluvial and landslide deposits from the Quaternary after the folding, faulting, and over

Broken pieces of rock would have drifted down a river, eventually the broken pieces of rock would have settled at the bottom of the water and become deposited, the deposited rocks form layers, the weight from the pieces of rock squashes the bottom layers of sediments and the water between the rocks are squeezed out, Crystals and different salts start to form which causes a type of glue- this is called cementation, eventually a sedimentary rock is formed, however this may take Millions of years.

The forming of the geologic features go way back to starting with the beginning of North America millions of years ago. The land that is now known as Eastern California, was covered by a shallow sea. North America was slowly being pushed westward and oceanic crust was being pushed onto the side and being pulled underneath the continent. After continuous repetition, this accretionary wedge formed. This is when some of the crust pushes up onto the edge of the

The Grand Canyon has plenty of volcanic rocks near the bottom and the top. ICR, Institute for Creative Research, has been involved in a project for years to date these volcanic rocks. this study has come a long way to show that many of the Grand Canyon strata could have formed rapidly, and that the erosion of the Canyon by the Colorado River has not been going on for millions of years.

I was surprised when I found out that people live along side of such a beautiful canyon like this. It is said that still to this day you can see signatures of past residence that lived here on rocks and cabins. Although many don’t remain settled there today, they still make routine deliveries to forest service locations. It is amazing that a mail delivery system dating back to the 1920’s still continues today. The most amazing part of this film is seeing how settlers lived in such a remote place on earth. No electricity, no running water etc. Many citizens came to the United States because of the industrial revolution. This reminds me of when we talked about the citizens came over seas in hopes of a better life and getting a job. These citizens all lived in Miami and created their own community much like Hells Canyon. While I was watching this film I just could not understand on why many settlers chose to live here. Setting in the Hells Canyon is the complete opposite of the industrial revolution. We talked about in class, people often are not choosing where to live but actually forced to live where they do. I think the example of the Hells Canyon is the opposite. Many settlers have actually moved and choose to live in this wild

I’ve sent you this letter to notify you on your essay “The Damnation of a Canyon” and how you’ve made a mistake in your essay but you didn’t. Simple as that I don’t think there is anything wrong with it, the point of this essay is to persuade those that think you’re wrong and I’m sure it worked on a lot of them. Yes there are a lot logical fallacies but I’m certain you meant to put them in. Although they might not be correct I guess you gotta do, what you gotta do. Other then that you’ve gotten your point across. So props to you Mr. Abbey.