Aerial view, south from Monitor Mesa, Jurassic rock strata mesas, rising brown arid floor Piute Farms Wash, Utah, USA

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The Monument Valley region of the Colorado Plateau is characterised by a large number of mesas and buttes, the largest rising 300 metres (1000 feet) above the valley floor, which is itself 5000-6000 feet above sea level. The Monument valley buttes are stratified. The reddish brown mudstones and siltstones of the Permian Organ Rock Shale is exposed at the base of the mesas and buttes. Forming massive cliffs above is the Permian DeChelly Sandstone, a fine-grained, quartz-rich sandstone that has a reddish colour due to haematite iron salts coating the sand grains. Thin sandstone and siltstone beds of the Triassic Moenkopi Formation cap the buttes. Here, on the western edge of the valley, the above formations dip below later Jurassic Beds, forming the mesas to the west (right side view)

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Size: 4592px × 3056px
Location: Piute Farms Wash at Monitor Mesa, looking south, Monument Valley, Utah, USA
Photo credit: © robert harrison / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

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