ISS034-E-66804 Click the photo number to access all resolutions available and the database record.
The Colorado River, dammed to form Lake Powell in 1963, crosses from east to west (which is left to right here because the astronaut was looking south; north is towards the bottom of the image). The confluence of the Colorado and San Juan Rivers is also visible. Sunglint—sunlight reflected off a water surface back towards the observer—provides a silvery, mirror-like sheen to some areas of the water surfaces.
The geologic uplift of the Colorado Plateau led to rapid downcutting of rivers into the flat sedimentary bedrock, leaving spectacular erosional landforms. One such feature, The Rincon, preserves evidence of a former meander bend of the Colorado River.
Snow cover blankets the higher elevations of Navajo Mountain, a large body of igneous rock that intruded into pre-existing sedimentary rock layers and bowed them upwards into a structural dome. Snow also caps the highland surface of the Kaiparowits Plateau (approximately 2,300 meters or 7500 feet in elevation). The bulk of Navajo Mountain and the Kaiparowits Plateau are within the state of Utah; the town of Page is located just south of the border in Arizona.
