Thursday, September 19, 2013

Hoodoo You Think You Are?

Well, I’ve run out of adjectives. We visited Bryce Canyon National Park today, and found it to be completely indescribable. The main features are the pink, salmon, cream, and orange hoodoos. I’ll paste in the definition and description from the National Park Service and stick in a bunch of my pictures.DSC_0082

“Hoodoos are tall skinny spires of rock that protrude from the bottom of arid basins and ‘broken’ lands. Hoodoos are most commonly found in the High Plateaus region of the Colorado Plateau and in DSC_0088the Badlands regions of the Northern Great Plains. While hoodoos are scattered throughout these areas, nowhere in the world are they as abundant as in the northern section of Bryce Canyon National Park. In common usage, the difference between Hoodoos and pinnacles or spires is that hoodoos have a variable thickness often described as having a "totem pole-shaped body." A spire, on the other hand, has a smoother profile or uniform thickness that tapers from the ground upward.

At Bryce Canyon, hoodoos range in size from that of an averageDSC_0103 human to heights exceeding a 10-story building. Formed in sedimentary rock, hoodoo shapes are affected by the erosional patterns of alternating hard and softer rock layers. The name given to the rock layer that forms hoodoos at Bryce Canyon is the Claron Formation. DSC_0104This layer has several rock types including siltstones and mudstones but is predominantly limestone. Thirty to 40 million years ago this rock was "born" in an ancient lake that covered much of Western Utah. Minerals deposited within different rock types cause hoodoos to have different colors throughout their height.”

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