Aerial view, west to Piute Mesa, mesas buttes rising dry stream channels floor Piute Farms Wash, Monument Valley, 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 (background view).

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Size: 4209px × 2193px
Location: Piute Farms Wash, west towards Piute Mesa and Navajo Mountain, Monument Valley, Utah, USA
Photo credit: © robert harrison / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: aerial, american, arid, brown, buttes, colorado, desert, dry, erosion, erosional, farms, floor, geography, geology, geomorphology, landforms, landscape, man, mesa, mesas, monument, panorama, piute, plateau, rock, rocks, semi-arid, strata, stratified, tse-dahascani, usa, utah, valley, view, wash, west