STARTLING COAL MINE CANYON

COAL MINE CANYON'S SURPRISING SCULPTURE GALLERY

COAL MINE CANYON'S SURPRISING SCULPTURE GALLERY THE UNREMARKABLE TERRAIN

Surrounding Coal Mine Canyon does nothing to prepare you for a first glimpse of the small but spectacular chasm on the edge of the Moenkopi Plateau in Indian Country. Within its recesses, shades of red, orange, buff, purple, and blue imbue a seemingly endless variety of shapes: monoliths, spires, anthropomorphic hoodoos, and free-standing walls. Miners have extracted coal from this canyon, and Navajo medicine men collected its sands to use in rituals. Ha-Ho-No-Geh Canyon, the Navajos call it. By any name, its startling beauty first surprises, then beguiles.(PRECEDING PANEL, PAGES 24 AND 25) The waning light of a winter's day rakes across the eroded ridgelines of Coal Mine Canyon. (ABOVE) Variegated layers of sandstone deposited by ancient seas during the time of the dinosaurs color the canyon walls. (RIGHT) The sandstones are, from the top darker layer down: Dakota sandstone, white Cow Springs sandstone, cream-colored Entrata sandstone, and reddish Carmel formation sandstone. The Dakota sandstone, the most recent, was deposited about 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period; the others, during the Jurassic, more than 160 million years ago.