This is a world of stone and sky, where between the eye and the horizon lies a colorful panorama of buttes, canyons, and plateaus. Life is challenging in this desert environment, yet many animals have adapted to the extremes of temperature and topography here. Rare perennial streams and seeps support explosions of vegetation and echo with the songs of water-loving wildlife. The forces of nature have, over an immense span of time, created a wondrous landscape here.
Slickrock caps of Navajo sandstone cover layers of sediment from ancient oceans, shores, and deserts, and folds and warps in these layers indicate movement of long-buried salt deposits. Hiking trails lead to graceful sandstone spans arcing against the sky, enormous rocks balanced on thin spires, standing rock fins, and cliff walls hundreds of feet high.
Arches National Park possesses a beauty both grand and strange. Some who visit will want to know more about geologic or natural history. Others may be inspired to creative expression. The sublime beauty of the land, however, speaks to everyone. Arches National Park lies atop an underground salt bed called the Paradox Formation, which is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, fins, and eroded monoliths common throughout the park.
Thousands of feet thick in places, the Paradox layer was deposited across the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with the residue of floods and winds as the oceans returned and evaporated again and again.
Much of this debris was cemented into rock. At one time this overlying layer of rock may have been more than a mile thick. Salt under pressure is unstable, and the salt bed below Arches began to flow under the weight of the overlying sandstones. This movement caused the surface rock to buckle and shift, thrusting some sections upward into domes, dropping others into surrounding cavities, and causing vertical cracks which would later contribute to the development of arches.
The Formation of Arches
As the subsurface movement of salt shaped the surface, erosion stripped away the younger rock layers. Water seeped into cracks and joints, washing away loose debris and eroding the "cement" that held the sandstone together, leaving a series of free-standing fins. During colder periods, ice formed, its expansion putting pressure on the rock, breaking off bits and pieces, and sometimes creating openings. Many damaged fins collapsed.
Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, have survived as the world-famous formations of Arches National Park. Faults deep in the Earth also contributed to the instability on the surface. The result of one such 2,500-foot displacement is called the Moab Fault and is visible from the Arches Visitor Center. Salt Valley was also formed by such a displacement. Except for isolated remnants, the major rock formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the tan-colored Navajo Sandstone.
Devils Garden A garden of rock that includes many of the awe-inspiring arches for which the park is named.
Klondike Blufffs
Make sure to see these dramatic cliffs.
Petrified Dunes
Dunes frozen in time.
Arches NP can be reached by driving 26 miles SE on US 191 from Interstate 70 at Crescent Junction. The signed turnoff to the park is 4 miles northwest of the north end of Moab, and 2 miles from the Colorado River bridge on US 191.
Amtrak and Greyhound both serve Green River (50 miles from Moab), and Greyhound also stops at Crescent Junction (30 miles away). Taxi and shuttle services can be arranged from these locations.
From Salt Lake City, a commuter airline (Alpine Air: (801)575-2839) and a shuttle bus (Bighorn Express: (435)587-3061) provide transportation to Moab.
Slickrock caps of Navajo sandstone cover layers of sediment from ancient oceans, shores, and deserts, and folds and warps in these layers indicate movement of long-buried salt deposits. Hiking trails lead to graceful sandstone spans arcing against the sky, enormous rocks balanced on thin spires, standing rock fins, and cliff walls hundreds of feet high.
Arches National Park possesses a beauty both grand and strange. Some who visit will want to know more about geologic or natural history. Others may be inspired to creative expression. The sublime beauty of the land, however, speaks to everyone. Arches National Park lies atop an underground salt bed called the Paradox Formation, which is responsible for the arches, spires, balanced rocks, fins, and eroded monoliths common throughout the park.
Thousands of feet thick in places, the Paradox layer was deposited across the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with the residue of floods and winds as the oceans returned and evaporated again and again.
Much of this debris was cemented into rock. At one time this overlying layer of rock may have been more than a mile thick. Salt under pressure is unstable, and the salt bed below Arches began to flow under the weight of the overlying sandstones. This movement caused the surface rock to buckle and shift, thrusting some sections upward into domes, dropping others into surrounding cavities, and causing vertical cracks which would later contribute to the development of arches.
The Formation of Arches
As the subsurface movement of salt shaped the surface, erosion stripped away the younger rock layers. Water seeped into cracks and joints, washing away loose debris and eroding the "cement" that held the sandstone together, leaving a series of free-standing fins. During colder periods, ice formed, its expansion putting pressure on the rock, breaking off bits and pieces, and sometimes creating openings. Many damaged fins collapsed.
Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, have survived as the world-famous formations of Arches National Park. Faults deep in the Earth also contributed to the instability on the surface. The result of one such 2,500-foot displacement is called the Moab Fault and is visible from the Arches Visitor Center. Salt Valley was also formed by such a displacement. Except for isolated remnants, the major rock formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the tan-colored Navajo Sandstone.
Devils Garden A garden of rock that includes many of the awe-inspiring arches for which the park is named.
Klondike Blufffs
Make sure to see these dramatic cliffs.
Petrified Dunes
Dunes frozen in time.
Arches NP can be reached by driving 26 miles SE on US 191 from Interstate 70 at Crescent Junction. The signed turnoff to the park is 4 miles northwest of the north end of Moab, and 2 miles from the Colorado River bridge on US 191.
Amtrak and Greyhound both serve Green River (50 miles from Moab), and Greyhound also stops at Crescent Junction (30 miles away). Taxi and shuttle services can be arranged from these locations.
From Salt Lake City, a commuter airline (Alpine Air: (801)575-2839) and a shuttle bus (Bighorn Express: (435)587-3061) provide transportation to Moab.