Island in The Sky–Moab to Canyonlands

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What is the difference between a natural bridge and an arch? It seems of interest in this landscape. Rich’s source says a bridge is from stream flow and an arch by all other erosion. However, Wikipedia says: “The choice between bridge and arch is somewhat arbitrary. The Natural Arch and Bridge Society identifies a bridge as a subtype of arch that is primarily water-formed.By contrast, the Dictionary of Geological Terms defines a natural bridge as a ‘natural arch that spans a valley of erosion.’ ”
Rich calls this landscape “layer cake.” Still trying to learn the sedimentary layers, and as always confused because layers do have local names. Canyonlands itself is composed of:
Top to bottom:
Navajo Sandstone
Kayenta Formation
Wingate Sandstone
Chinle Formation (which I know so well from Petrified Forest)
Moenkopi Formation (where ripple marks and even raindrops are preserved)
White Rim Sandstone (once an ancient shore)
Oregan Rock Shale (tidal flats)
Of course there is more, but this helped me understand, –and it is Permian Triassic, Jurassic

The more sublime the landscape, the more difficult it is for me to describe it. Canyonlands–the area known as Island in the Sky. At the approach, red rock cliffs so majestic they seem to calve colossi, enormous pharoahs, colonnades, temples of rock. Canyonlands itself so vast it might contain dozens of Grand Canyons.
Classic Chinese painters differentiate between three types of landscape:
1. Fit to live in
2. To walk through
3. To view from afar
I think Canyonlands is mostly the third–panoramic views with monoliths and cliffs and spires. I do walk as much as I can, cane propping my bum right side, to Mesa Arch which frames an extraordinary vastness of air, stone, air, ledge, fall, descent, plateau, and on and on.
To imagine the sea here is to dream. To hear it is to know you are asleep.

4 responses to “Island in The Sky–Moab to Canyonlands”

  1. […] Island in the Sky miriamswell.wordpress.com […]

  2. […] fun for me–there is a scale model of the solar system in Moab. It starts with the Sun in the middle of a basketball court, then Mercury in the near by public […]

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