THE WAVE
This picture was taken within the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness in a hiking area called Coyote Buttes North. The feature you see here is called The Wave.
The Wave is a geological feature that has been eroded into a Navajo Sandstone outcrop from the Jurassic time period. Navajo sandstone can be distinguished from other Jurassic period sandstones by being white to light pink in color and the distinctive rounded weathering. The colors in the sandstone come from deposits of limonite, goethite and hematite within the pore spaces of the quartz.
There are two major troughs: one 19m x 36m and the other 2m x 16m. Water runoff was the cause of the erosion of the troughs. After the troughs formed, the drainage basin, which fed the water to the troughs, shrank in size. When that happened there wasn’t enough water output delivered to the Wave area to continue that current rate of erosion. Presently, and ever since the drainage basin shrank in size, main contributor to the erosion of the wave formation is now dust and wind. There are thin ridges seen throughout the walls and floor of the wave which have certain resistances to the erosion of the wind and grains of sand causing the formation of cyclic alternating grainflow and windripple laminae. When one walks through the wave formation, they must be careful of where they step as to not damage these delicate features.
The Coyote Buttes North area is a restricted hiking area, only letting in 20 people per day to hike on and around the sandstone formations. To obtain a permit, you must apply to a lottery 4 months ahead of time. Ten of the permits are also available by walk-in lottery the day before the hiking date on the permit. Check out the links below if you want to find out more on how to obtain a permit.
No, you cannot skate on it.
-CS
Photo Credit : Elena Northroup
Photo Link: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=285956744820358&set=a.283441148405251.66192.117905868292114&type=3&theater
More info on the Wave:
http://www.zionnational-park.com/coyote-buttes-paria.htm
http://www.naturalbornhikers.com/TheWave/thewave.htm
