Landscape Arch is a natural arch in Arches National Park, Utah, United States. It is among the longest natural rock arches in the world.
A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as vrtače and shakeholes, and to openings where surface water enters into underground passages known as ponor, swallow hole or swallet. A cenote is a type of sinkhole that exposes groundwater underneath. Sink and stream sink are more general terms for sites that drain surface water, possibly by infiltration into sediment or crumbled rock.
A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. They are formed when part of a headland is eroded by hydraulic action, which is the force of the sea or water crashing against the rock. The force of the water weakens cracks in the headland, causing them to later collapse, forming free-standing stacks and even a small island. Without the constant presence of water, stacks also form when a natural arch collapses under gravity, due to sub-aerial processes like wind erosion. Erosion causes the arch to collapse, leaving the pillar of hard rock standing away from the coast—the stack. Eventually, erosion will cause the stack to collapse, leaving a stump. Stacks can provide important nesting locations for seabirds, and many are popular for rock climbing.
Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as their creating process, shape, elevation, slope, orientation, rock exposure, and soil type.
Rainbow Bridge is a natural arch in southern Utah, United States. With a span of 275 feet (84 m), as reported in 1974 by the Bureau of Reclamation, and height of 290 feet (88 m), it is one of the largest natural arches in the world. At the top it is 42 feet (13 m) thick and 33 feet (10 m) wide. The bridge, which is of cultural importance to a number of area Native American tribes, has been designated a Traditional Cultural Property by the National Park Service. Rainbow Bridge National Monument was protected in 1910, and it is administered by Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
A mesa is an isolated, flat-topped elevation, ridge or hill, which is bounded from all sides by steep escarpments and stands distinctly above a surrounding plain. Mesas characteristically consist of flat-lying soft sedimentary rocks capped by a more resistant layer or layers of harder rock, e.g. shales overlain by sandstones. The resistant layer acts as a caprock that forms the flat summit of a mesa. The caprock can consist of either sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and limestone; dissected lava flows; or a deeply eroded duricrust. Unlike plateau, whose usage does not imply horizontal layers of bedrock, e.g. Tibetan Plateau, the term mesa applies exclusively to the landforms built of flat-lying strata. Instead, flat-topped plateaus are specifically known as tablelands.
The exposed geology of the Bryce Canyon area in Utah shows a record of deposition that covers the last part of the Cretaceous Period and the first half of the Cenozoic era in that part of North America. The ancient depositional environment of the region around what is now Bryce Canyon National Park varied from the warm shallow sea in which the Dakota Sandstone and the Tropic Shale were deposited to the cool streams and lakes that contributed sediment to the colorful Claron Formation that dominates the park's amphitheaters.
Double Arch is a close-set pair of natural arches in Arches National Park in southern Grand County, Utah, United States, that is one of the more known features of the park.
The exposed geology of the Capitol Reef area presents a record of mostly Mesozoic-aged sedimentation in an area of North America in and around Capitol Reef National Park, on the Colorado Plateau in southeastern Utah.
Aloba Arch is a natural arch located in Chad. Large natural arches are somewhat rare outside the southern and western regions of China and the Colorado Plateau of the southwest United States. Chad's Ennedi Plateau, located within the Sahara Desert in the northeast part of the country near Libya and Sudan has a geology similar to the Colorado Plateau and has produced a number of natural arches and similar landforms, although only Aloba can claim to be on the top ten list of longest arches in the world.
The Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, commonly known as Big South Fork, preserves the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River and its tributaries in northeastern Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky.
Natural Bridge Park, near the town of Natural Bridge, Alabama, is a privately owned park in Winston County that has been open since 1954. The current owners are Donnie and Naomi Lowman.
The Azure Window, also known as the Dwejra Window, was a 28-metre-tall (92 ft) natural arch on the island of Gozo, located just off the shores of Malta. The limestone feature, which was in Dwejra Bay close to the Inland Sea and Fungus Rock, was one of the island's major tourist attractions until it collapsed in stormy weather on 8 March 2017. The arch, together with other natural features in the area, has appeared in a number of international films and media productions.
Devils Garden is an area of Arches National Park, located near Moab, Utah, United States, that features a series of rock fins and arches formed by erosion. The Devils Garden Trail, including more primitive sections and spurs, meanders through the area for 7.2 mi (11.6 km). The trailhead leads directly to Landscape Arch after a 0.8 mi (1.3 km) outbound hike, while Tunnel Arch and Pine Tree Arch can be seen on spur trails on the way to Landscape Arch. Several other arches, including Partition, Navajo, Double O, and Private Arch, as well as the Dark Angel monolith and Fin Canyon, are accessed via the primitive loop trail and its spurs.
Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 mi (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. The park contains more than 2,000 natural sandstone arches, including the well-known Delicate Arch, which constitute the highest density of natural arches in the world. It also contains a variety of other unique geological resources and formations. The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area.
Cedar Mesa Sandstone is a sandstone member of the Cutler Formation, found in southeast Utah, southwest Colorado, northwest New Mexico, and northeast Arizona.
The Devils Garden of the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument (GSENM) in south central Utah, United States, is a protected area featuring hoodoos, natural arches and other sandstone formations. The area is also known as the Devils Garden Outstanding Natural Area within the National Landscape Conservation System.
The Shinarump Conglomerate is a geologic formation found in the Four Corners region of the United States. It was deposited in the early part of the Late Triassic period.
A fin is a geological formation that is a narrow, residual wall of hard sedimentary rock that remains standing after surrounding rock has been eroded away along parallel joints or fractures. Fins are formed when a narrow butte or plateau develops many vertical, parallel cracks. There are two main modes of following erosion. The first is when water flows along joints and fractures and opens them wider and wider, eventually causing erosion. The second is where the rock type (stratum) is harder and more erosion resistant than neighboring rocks, causing the weaker rock to fall away.
Cedar Sink is a vertical-walled large depression, or sinkhole, in the ground, that is located in Edmonson County, Kentucky and contained within and managed by Mammoth Cave National Park. The sinkhole measures 300 feet (91.4 m) from the top sandstone plateau to the bottom of the sink and was caused by collapse of the surface soil. The landscape is karst topography, which means the region is influenced by the dissolution of soluble rocks. Sinkholes, caves, and dolines typically characterize these underground drainage systems. Cedar Sink has a bottom area of about 7 acres (2.8 ha) and has more fertile soil compared to the ridgetops.
