| Navajo Mountain, Utah: The Colorado Plateau of Arizona,
Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah is made of mostly flat-lying layers of
sedimentary rock that record paleoclimate extremes ranging from
oceans to widespread deserts over the last 1.8 billion years. Navajo
Mountain in southeastern Utah is a dome-shaped chunk of igneous rock
that intruded into the sedimentary layers and lifted up the overlying
layer. Navajo Mountain is one of several of these rock formations,
called laccoliths by geologists, in southeastern Utah’s portion of
the Plateau. This oblique (from-the-side) astronaut photograph
highlights Navajo Mountain in the center of the image, surrounded by
light red-brown Navajo Sandstone (also visible in the canyon at
bottom of the image). The igneous rock at the core of the mountain is
wrapped in sedimentary layers. The peak of Navajo Mountain, at
approximately 3,148 meters (10,388 feet) elevation, is comprised of
uplifted Dakota Sandstone deposited during the Cretaceous Period
(approximately 66-138 million years ago). The Navajo Mountain
region has special cultural significance to the Navajo people, who
know it as Naatsis’áán (Earth Head). Together with Rainbow Bridge to
the northwest (approximate location shown), Navajo Mountain figures
prominently as the first settlement area in western Navajo origin
stories. Following the military defeat of the Diné (Navajo) by United
States forces in 1863, the political landscape was changed by new
boundaries and major physical alterations. The establishment of
Rainbow Bridge National Monument (1910), and the filling of Glen
Canyon by Lake Powell in 1963 (upper right), has facilitated tourism
and aesthetic appreciation of this previously remote region. Access
to Navajo Mountain is still regulated by the sovereign Navajo Nation,
and a permit is required to hike in the region. |
