Landforms in Southern Utah

I find it to be fascinating to contemplate the vast geologic forces that created the landforms in Southern Utah and Northern Arizona. This is a series of five photos. You can see all five photos by clicking on the main photo shown here. These images come from the Kodachrome Basin State Park near Cannonville, Utah. The Park contains 67 monolithic stone spires called sedimentary pipes. The origin of these nearly unique geologic structures have yet to be adequately explained. 

We hiked along the Angels Palace trail and looked down from the 200 foot cliffs into the "basin." This is one of my favorite campgrounds and, in my opinion, one of the most scenic locations in the Southwest.

The main red sandstone layer of the park is the Entrada Sandstone of the San Rafael Group. This on the Colorado Plateau and this particular formation was deposited during the Jurassic period sometime between 180 and 140 million years ago in tidal mudflats, beaches and sand dunes. See Entrada Sandstone.  This layer of sandstone is also visible in the Arches National Park, the Capital Reef National Park and Goblin Valley State Park.

The lighter colored sandstone above the Entrada is the Curtis Formation.

Here is one of the mysterious sandstone pipes.