Arches National Park Features History Geology Publicity

Arches National Park, located near Moab, Utah, in the mid-western United States, is noted for its concentration of natural arches - about 2,000 have been located in the park's area.

The park is 119 square miles ( 310 km²To help compare different orders of magnitude and geographical regions, we list here areas between 100 km² and 1000 km². See also areas of other orders of magnitude. Areas less than 100 km² 100 km² is equal to: a square with sides 10 km long 10,000 hectar) in size. Its highest elevation is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte and its lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. It receives 10 inches (250 mm) of rain a year on average.

The area was originally designated as a national monument on April 12April 12 is the 102nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (103rd in leap years). There are 263 days remaining. Events 467 Anthemius is elevated to Emperor of the Western Roman Empire 1204 The Fourth Crusade sacks Constantinople 1606 The Union Jack i, 1929Centuries: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s Years: 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 See also 1929 in aviation 1929 in film 1929 in literature 1929 in mu. The area was subsequently upgraded to national parkThis article is about national parks. For the articles about the towns of National Park, see National Park, New Jersey and National Park, New Zealand. National parks are reserves of land, usually owned by national governments, that are protected from most status on November 12, 1971. More than 760,000 people visited it in 2002.

1 Features

2 History

Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and Ancient Pueblo People lived in the area up until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paitue tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, but then soon abandonded the area. Ranchers, farmers, and prospectors later settled Moab in the neighboring riverine valley in the 1880s. Word of the beauty in the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination.

Alexander Ringhoffer, a prospector, wrote to the offices of Rio Grande Western Railroad in 1923 in an effort to publicize the area and gain support for creating a national park. Ringhoffer led railroad executives interested in attracting more rail passengers into the formations; they were impressed, and the campaign began. The government sent research teams to investigate and gather evidence. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover signed the legislation creating Arches National Monument, to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations. In 1971 Congress changed the status of Arches to a National Park. However, some of the more specatular arches and formations lie to the north and east outside park boundaries.

3 Geology

The national park lies atop an underground salt bed, which is basically responsible for the arches and spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. Thousands of feet thick in places, this salt bed was deposited over the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with residue from floods and winds and the oceans that came in intervals. Much of this debris was compressed into rock. At one time this overlying earth may have been one mile thick.

Salt under pressure is unstable, and the salt bed below Arches was no match for the weight of this thick cover of rock. Under such pressure it shifted, buckled, liquified, and repositioned itself, thrusting the Earth layers upward into domes. Whole sections dropped into cavities. In places they turned almost on edge. Faults occurred. The result of one such 2,500-foot displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center.

As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the Earth, surface erosion stripped away the younger rock layers. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone , in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone . These are visible in layer cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time water seeped into the superficial cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches. This is the geologic story of Arches - probably. The evidence is largely circumstantial.

4 Publicity

American writer Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument when he kept journals that became his book Desert Solitaire. The success of this book, as well as the rise in advanture-based recreation, has drawn many hikers, mountain-bikers, and offroad enthusiasts to the area, but activities are limited within park boundaries: camping, foot hiking (along designated trails), and driving only along marked roads.

The opening scenes of the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed at the park.

5 External link

National parks of the United States Utah

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Arches

Designation	National Park
Location	Utah USA
Nearest City	Moab, Utah
Latitude	38° 45' N
Longitude	109° 37' W
Area	76,519 acres 30,996 ha
Date of Establishment	November 12, 1971
Visitation	755,987 (2003)
Governing Body	National Park Service
IUCN category	II (National Park)

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