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girlawhirl wonders what makes the rocks red in sedona Mar 31, 2008
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Every time she's lucky enough to visit Sedona, Arizona, Girlawhirl's overwhelmed by the beauty of the red rocks. She can't believe that people get to live in such a place every day, and wonders if she lived there would she ever grow tired of the landscape... But just what makes the rocks red? Girlawhirl figured it had something to do with the iron content in the earth, but what she found out about how the earth evolved in this part of the country was pretty interesting. As it turns out, the area around Sedona has been, at different times in the evolution of planet Earth either underwater, a seashore, or a desert, and each incarnation has left its mark on the land that's now full of winding canyons and craggy rock formations.
When looking at some of the most famous rock formations, like those called Bell Rock, Coffee Pot Rock, Cathedral Rock and others, Girlawhirl assumed that they'd been shaped by the wind over the course of several thousand years. But that couldn't be further from the truth! Those rocks were in fact whittled into all their cool and contorted shapes by water,
And yes, the red color is from iron. To form the really red rocks, the iron was actually in the water that covered them when they were underwater. As the water leached through the sandstone it left behind some of the iron, changing the color of the earth to the rusty red, almost bright orange, colors Girlawhirl loves. Those rocks are about 250 million years old.
Girlawhirl can't get enough of the landscape and red rocks around Sedona, Arizona. So every now and then she clicks here to check out this Sedona webcam.
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millions of years ago. As the area now called the Colorado Plateau – which also contains the Grand Canyon – was raised up because of pressure inside the Earth, what was underwater became the cliffs and rocks around the winding creeks and canyons that form today's landscape.
