: Bryce Canyon National Park Utah (1952) by United States National Park Service - Bryce Canyon National Park (Utah) Guidebooks

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Bryce Canyon National Park includes some of the most interesting exposures of the Pink Cliffs formation, whose rocks are among the most colorful of any forming the earth's crust. The major beauty spots of the area are found where forces of erosion have cut back into the plateau, forming amphitheaters or wide canyons filled with pinnacles and grotesque forms.

Most of the park area, with some 30 miles of Pink Cliffs, can be seen from Rainbow Point, at the southern end of the park. Included in this panorama are such beautiful amphitheaters as Black Birch Canyon, Agua Canyon, and Willis Creek. In addition, there are magnificent views across "the land of the purple sage" to Navajo Mountain, 80 miles to the east, and to the Kaibab Plateau and the Trumbull Mountains to the south, the latter 99 miles distant.

In reality Bryce is not a canyon; rather it is a great horseshoe-shaped bowl or amphitheater cut by water erosion into the Paunsaugunt Plateau and extending down a thousand feet through its pink and white marly limestone. The character of the area is well indicated by the Paiute Indian name, "Unka-timpe-wa-wince-pock-ich," which is translated as, "red rocks standing like men in a bowl-shaped canyon." The largest amphitheater is 3 miles long and about 2 miles wide, and is filled with myriads of fantastic figures cut by weathering influences. Its domes, spires, and temples are decorated in all the colors of the spectrum.

The area was reserved as Bryce Canyon National Monument by Presidential proclamation, June 8, 1923. The act of June 7, 1924, authorized its establishment as Utah National Park when certain conditions regarding land acquisition had been met. The act of February 25, 1928, changed the name from Utah National Park to Bryce Canyon National Park and materially increased the size of the area. On September 15, 1928, when all alienated lands within the proposed park area were transferred to the United States, in accordance with the act of June 7, 1924, Bryce Canyon National Park was established. The park now embraces more than 36,000 acres under Federal ownership.

Bryce Canyon National Park is one of the areas of the National Park System owned by the people of the United States and administered for them by the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. In these areas the scenery and the objects of historic, prehistoric, and scientific interest are carefully preserved and displayed for public enjoyment.

Geology of Bryce Canyon National Park

The streams at work in the parks, though relatively small, have steep gradients, including rapids and waterfalls, and are supplied with disintegrated rock material swept from the ledges by torrential rains about as fast as formed. They are therefore powerful agents of erosion, especially in times of flood. The fresh, sharp, angular profile of mesas, ridges, and canyon walls and the extensive areas of bare rock are maintained by the rapid down-cutting and prompt removal of rock waste. The resulting land forms reflect the aridity and the topographic youth of southern Utah and contrast strongly with the rounded hills, broad valleys, plant-covered slopes, and deep soils of more humid regions.

Age of rocks Formation

lava Eocene Wasatch: Pink Cliffs ROCKS IN BRYCE CANYON PARK MESOZOIC Cretaceous Undifferentiated: Gray Cliffs sandstone shale coal Jurassic gypsum Carmel limestone Navajo sandstone: cross-bedded ROCKS IN ZION PARK White Cliffs sandstone Kayenta-Wingate Triassic Chinle: Vermilion shale, Cliffs sandstone, ash and limestone fossil wood Shinarump conglomerate Moenkopi: Belted shale Cliffs sandstone oil RIM OF GRAND CANYON Permian Kaibab limestone

A study of the rocks of Zion and Bryce Canyon shows that during the last 200,000,000 years the region comprising the parks has witnessed many changes in landscape and climate. At times it was covered by the sea, at other times broad rivers traversed its surface, and at still other times it was swept by desert winds. Most of the rocks were laid down by water as gravel, sand, mud, and limy ooze. They have been converted into solid rock by the weight of layers above them and by lime, silica, and the iron that cement their grains. Embedded in the rocks are fossil sea shells, fish, trees, snails, and the bones and tracks of land animals that sought their food on flood plains, in forests, or among sand dunes. The most conspicuous remains are those of dinosaurs--huge reptiles that so dominated the life of their time that the Mesozoic is known as the "age of dinosaurs."

The accumulation of some 8,000 feet of strata on top of 4,000 feet of older beds, which are exposed in Grand Canyon, may be considered the first of three major events in the development of the marvelous landscapes of the Zion-Bryce region; it provided the material from which the huge scenic features were later carved. The second event was a regional uplift which elevated the previously low-lying top beds of the series to a height of nearly 2 miles above sea level. As a result of this movement, the earth's crust was broken into huge rectangular blocks by north-south fractures or faults. Three of these great faults can be seen in the vicinity of the parks: the Hurricane fault in the Hurricane Cliffs, west of Zion; the Paunsaugunt fault in the cliffs of Bryce; and the Sevier fault along the Mount Carmel Road between the two parks.

In consequence of the uplift the third major event, the present cycle of erosion, was initiated. The streams became strong and swift and so were able to cut deeply into the underlying rock and carry away the land waste. In this process the streams have removed many cubic miles of rocks, which, if replaced, would fill the present canyons and build up their bordering land to the level of the lofty Markagunt and Paunsaugunt Plateaus. The gigantic features of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks mark a stage in the process of erosion that began long ago and which, if continued without interruption, will convert the present rugged landscape into plains near sea level.

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