Page Cross Bedding: Photograph by Will Tenney

Page Cross Bedding

The Glen Canyon Dam at Page, Arizona, creates Lake Powell and controls (or chokes) the flow of water down the Colorado River into the Grand Canyon. At the overlook just south of the dam, the extraordinary rock formations show off the layering and cross-bedding which is so much a part of this arid landscape. Layer upon layer of sand, blown by the wind into layers which crossed each other as the wind changed direction, have been crushed over time into sandstone. One might call these formations “petrified sand dunes.”