John Wayne's Boot in Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Lands, Utah, USA
Monument Valley is located on the southern border of Utah with northern Arizona The valley lies within the range of the Navajo Nation Reservation. The Navajo name for the valley is Tsé Bii' Ndzisgaii (Valley of the Rocks). The area is part of the Colorado Plateau. The floor is largely Cutler Red siltstone or its sand deposited by the meandering rivers that carved the valley. The valley's vivid red color comes from iron oxide exposed in the weathered siltstone. The darker, blue-gray rocks in the valley get their color from manganese oxide. The twin buttes of the Valley ("the Mittens"), the "Totem Pole," and the Ear of the Wind arch, among other features, have developed iconic status. They have appeared in many television programs, commercials, and Hollywood movies, especially Westerns. Monument Valley provides perhaps the most enduring and definitive images of the American West. The isolated red mesas and buttes surrounded by empty, sandy desert have been filmed and photographed countless times over the years for movies, adverts and holiday brochures. Because of this, the area may seem quite familiar, even on a first visit, but it is soon evident that the natural colors really are as bright and deep as those in all the pictures. The valley is not a valley in the conventional sense, but rather a wide flat, sometimes desolate landscape, interrupted by the crumbling formations rising hundreds of feet into the air, the last remnants of the sandstone layers that once covered the entire region. This great valley boasts sandstone masterpieces that tower at heights of 400 to 1,000 feet. framed by scenic clouds casting shadows that graciously roam the desert floor. The angle of the sun accents these graceful formations, providing scenery that is simply spellbinding. Natural forces of wind and water that eroded the land spent the last 50 million years cutting in to and peeling away at the surface of the plateau.
Size: 3400px × 5119px
Location: Monument Valley, Navajo Tribal Lands, Utah, USA
Photo credit: © Brenda Kean / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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