The Geologic Story of Canyonlands National Park

Part 1

The Geologic Story of Canyonlands NATIONAL PARK

By S. W. Lohman Graphics by John R. Stacy

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY BULLETIN 1327

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR ROGERS C. B. MORTON, Secretary

GEOLOGICAL SURVEY V. E. McKelvey, Director

Library of Congress catalog-card No. 74-600043

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1974

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402—Price $2.65 (paper covers) Stock Number 2401-02498

Contents

Page A new park is born 1 Major Powell’s river expeditions 4 Early history 9 Prehistoric people 9 Late arrivals 14 Geographic setting 17 Rocks and landforms 20 How to see the park 26 The high mesas 27 Island in the Sky 27 Dead Horse Point State Park 30 North entrance 34 Shafer and White Rim Trails 34 Grand View Point 36 Green River Overlook 43 Upheaval Dome 43 Hatch Point 46 Needles Overlook 47 Canyonlands Overlook 48 U-3 Loop 49 Anticline Overlook 50 Orange Cliffs 54 The Benchlands 58 The Maze and Land of Standing Rocks 58 The Needles district 60 Salt, Davis, and Lavender Canyons 64 The Needles and The Grabens 73 Canyons of the Green and Colorado Rivers 85 Entrenched and cutoff meanders 86 Green River 87 Colorado River 96 Summary of geologic history 112 Additional reading 117 Acknowledgments 118 Selected references 118 Index 123

Illustrations

Page Frontispiece. Looking north from Devils Lane near Silver Stairs. Figure 1. Map of Canyonlands National Park 6 2. Pictographs on wall of Horseshoe Canyon 10 3. The All American Man 10 4. Tower Ruin 11 5. Newspaper Rock 13 6. Cave Spring Line Camp 15 7. Canyonlands National Park and vicinity 19 8. Shallow inland sea 21 9. Rock column of Canyonlands National Park 22 10. Section across Canyonlands National Park 24 11. Aerial view of The Neck and Shafer Trail 28 12. Merrimac and Monitor Buttes 29 13. Cane Creek anticline (viewed from Dead Horse Point) 30 14. Cutaway view of anticline 31 15. Looking southwest from Dead Horse Point 32 16. Shafer Trail 35 17. Natural tanks 37 18. Canyon Viewpoint Arch 37 19. Index map showing photograph localities 38 20. The White Rim 40 21. Monument Basin from Grand View Point 41 22. Monument Basin from the air 42 23. Stillwater Canyon and Green River 44 24. Turks Head 45 25. Upheaval Dome 45 26. Cutaway view of syncline 46 27. Junction Butte and Grand View Point 48 28. Syncline in core of Lockhart Basin 49 29. View westward from U-3 loop 50 30. Looking north from Anticline Overlook 51 31. Cane Creek anticline (viewed from Anticline Overlook) 52 32. View southeastward from The Spur 55 33. Looking north down Millard Canyon 56 34. Elaterite seeping from White Rim Sandstone 59 35. White Rim Sandstone 59 36. The Doll House 60 37. Church Rock 61 38. North and south Six-Shooter Peaks 62 39. Squaw Flat Campground 64 40. Aerial view eastward across Salt Canyon 65 41. Wooden Shoe 66 42. Paul Bunyans Potty 67 43. Angel Arch 69 44. Fisheye Arch 70 45. Wedding Ring Arch 71 46. Hand Holt Arch 71 47. Cleft Arch 72 48. Arch 72 49. The Needles 73 50. Chesler Park in The Needles 73 51. The Needles and The Grabens 74 52. Trail to Druid Arch 77 53. Upper Elephant Canyon 77 54. Druid Arch 78 55. A simple graben 80 56. Cutaway view of normal fault 80 57. West wall of Cyclone Canyon Graben 81 58. Lower Elephant Canyon 81 59. The confluence from the air 82 60. The confluence from Confluence Overlook 83 61. Cataract Canyon 84 62. Bowknot Bend 89 63. Inscription by Julien 91 64. Buttes of the Cross 92 65. Anderson Bottom Rincon 94 66. Drainage changes at Anderson Bottom Rincon 94 67. Stillwater Canyon 95 68. The Portal 97 69. The Canyon King 98 70. Potash mine of Texas Gulf, Inc 99 71. Evaporation ponds 99 72. Petrified log 102 73. Relatively recent rincons along Indian Creek 103 74. The Loop 104 75. Reverse fault 105 76. Cutaway view of reverse fault 105 77. Salt Creek Canyon 107 78. The Slide 107 79. Gypsum plug 109 80. Geologic time spiral 110 81. Late Cretaceous sea 114

A New Park is Born

On September 12, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an act of Congress establishing Canyonlands as our thirty-second national park, the first addition to the park system since 1956.

The birth of Canyonlands National Park was not without labor pains. In the 1930’s virtually all the vast canyon country between Moab, Utah, and Grand Canyon, Ariz., was studied for a projected Escalante National Park. But Escalante failed to get off the ground, even when a second attempt was made in the 1950’s. Not until another proposal had been made and legislative compromises had been worked out did the park materialize, this time under a new name—Canyonlands. Among the many dignitaries who witnessed the signature on September 12 was one of the men most responsible for the park’s creation, park superintendent Bates E. Wilson, who did the pioneer spade work in the field.

The newborn park covered 400 square miles at the junction of the Green and Colorado Rivers in Utah. It included such magnificent features as Island in the Sky, The Needles, Upheaval Dome, and the two great stone formations, Angel Arch and Druid Arch. On November 16, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon signed an act of Congress enlarging the park by 125 square miles in four separate parcels of land, so the area now totals 525 square miles, all in southeastern Utah, as shown on the map (fig. 1). The northern boundary was extended to include parts of Taylor and Shafer Canyons. The addition at the southeast corner takes in the headwaters of Salt and Lavender Canyons and part of Davis’ Canyon. The largest addition, at the southwest corner, includes grotesquely carved areas bearing such colorful names as The Maze, Land of Standing Rocks, The Fins, The Doll House (fig. 36), and Ernies Country (named after Ernie Larson, an early-day sheepman). The fourth parcel lies about 8 miles west of the northwest corner and encompasses much of Horseshoe Canyon, whose walls are adorned by striking pictographs (fig. 2).

At this writing (1973) the park is still in its infancy, with most of the planned developments and improvements awaiting time and money, but a good start has been made. In 1960 my family and I first traversed Island in the Sky to Grand View Point over a rough jeep trail; now it is reached with ease over a good graded road which eventually will be paved. A temporary trailer-housed entrance station near The Neck will be replaced by permanent headquarters for the Island in the Sky district after water is piped up from wells drilled near the mouth of Taylor Canyon.

In August 1965, when the Park was but 11 months old, we drove the family car over a two-track dirt “road” from Dugout Ranch to Cave Spring—temporary headquarters for the Needles district of the park, whose personnel were housed partly in trailers and partly in the cave. Now a modern paved highway, built by the State (Utah Highway 11) for 19 miles to Dugout Ranch and by San Juan County, the State of Utah, and the National Park Service for the next 18 miles, extends a total of 38 miles from U.S. Highway 163 to a new modern campground at Squaw Flat (fig. 39). The entrance station and housing for park personnel are now in trailers about 2 miles west of Cave Spring, but the trailers will be replaced by permanent structures. A shallow well near temporary headquarters supplies the only water available to the campground 1.5 miles to the west, but a new supply is to be developed for the campground and permanent headquarters. Groceries, gasoline, trailer hookups, and charter flights are available at Canyonlands Resort, just outside the eastern park boundary. The old cowboy line camp at Cave Spring has been restored so that visitors can see this phase of colorful Canyonlands history (fig. 6). Except for 2½ miles of partly graded road west from Squaw Flat, all travel to the west and south is by four-wheel-drive vehicle or on foot. In order to reach the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers, The Grabens, and Chesler and Virginia Parks, drivers must conquer formidable Elephant Hill, with its 40 percent grades and backup switchbacks. SOB Hill and the Silver Stairs also tax the skill and patience of jeepsters. Parts of this area will eventually be reached by graded roads, possibly by about 1977, but many hope that much of it will be kept accessible only by jeep or foot trails.

Bates Wilson, recently retired superintendent not only of Canyonlands National Park but also of nearby Arches National Park and of Natural Bridges National Monument about 80 miles to the south, is one of the few men in the park service who has guided a national park through all phases—location, promotion, establishment, and initial development. He retired in June 1972 to a ranch along the Colorado River north of Moab.

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