• Pipe Spring National Monument

    Pipe Spring

    National Monument Arizona

Remnants of a Frozen Sahara

Navajo Standstone

Remnants of a Frozen Sahara The pale rock you see here is Navajo sandstone. This rock caps the top of the Vermilion Cliffs for more than 80 miles. Navajo sandstone also forms the high canyon walls at Zion National Park.

Imagine an enormous Sahara-like desert, full of wind-blown sand dunes, stretching from today’s Wyoming to southern California. Geologists theorize that such a desert became the Navajo sandstone. When covered by a vast inland sea, that desert solidified in place. Minerals like calcium and iron cemented the ancient dunes together.

 
Sandstone
Along the Vermilion Cliffs and in Zion National Park the Navajo sandstone formation can be more than 2,000 feet thick.
 
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Did You Know?

Filming Death Valley Days at Pipe Spring.

Three episodes of Death Valley Days ("Long Night at Fort Lonely", "Key to the Fort", "A Full House") were filmed at Pipe Spring National Monument in 1967.