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Ania and Krzyś in the North Window |
This was the last stop on our
family trip called "The GRAND Trip" in 2012. We
travelled in our Toyota Corolla '94 from Ontario
to Alberta, then along the Rockies to California and back home to Ontario (15,531 km - 35 days - 12 national
parks - 4 provinces - 12 states).
Arches National Park
is located near Moab
in Utah (USA). We visited the park in the end of June 2012. The main
attractions of the park are natural sandstone arches, including the
world-famous Delicate Arch (featured on Utah
licence plates). Colourful sandstone and erosion created the main attractions
in the park. The age of the sandstone on this portion of the Colorado Plateau
is between Late Triassic and Early Jurassic. The Navajo Formation was deposited
in an arid erg about 210 Ma, and the rocks of the Entrada Formation (~180-140
Ma) were deposited on tidal mudflats, beaches and sand dunes. The arches were
formed in quite complicated way. First the rock was jointed due to plastic
deformations of salt underlying the sandstone. Joints often form very regular
grid of crossing lines, over a large areas. When jointed sandstone becomes
exposed, erosion takes over and starts to shape these rocks. Water that entered
the joints freezes and thaws, which disjoins cemented sand grains. Loose grains
are taken away by wind and the space between joints is getting wider. As the
process is the fastest at the ground level, typically it forms a small alcove
in the rock, which in favourable circumstances over very long period of time,
grain by grain, could expand into a rock window or an arch. For me, the most
amazing was the size of the rock wonders in the park. This is something I can
not show on my pictures. Therefore, I highly recommend placing the Arches National Park
on your USA
travel map. Most definitely it was one of my favourite national parks of the United States.
Courthouse Towers: on the left the Three Gossips, in the middle the Tower of Babel. The highest rock to the right is called the Organs
A rock window on the way to the Arches
Landscape Arch
Landscape Arch
Balanced Rock
Turret Arch
North and South Window
Balanced Rock
Climbing the Delicate Arch trail - almost there!
Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch
Delicate Arch