Edited by Tom Schweich  

Near this location is a paleosol collection site in the Permian Cedar Mesa Formation used by Retallack in his 2009 study of greenhouse crises of the past 300 million years. Retallack used stomatal index data for fossil Ginko and related leaves as a proxy for past CO₂ spikes and paleosol chemical data as proxies for temperature and humidity changes. These data show that global warming due to CO₂ rise is a not a unique event in earth history and that the magnitude of the coming anthropogenic greenhouse pales in comparison with past greenhouse spikes at times of global mass extinctions.

Valley of the Gods

Mexican Hat

Take Monument Valley Road to the southeast to the Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park Visitor Center.

Take Oljeto Road west to Gouldings, Utah.

Monument Valley

John Ford Point.	The View Hotel at Monument Valley.	Blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima) in bloom at Monument Valley.	Egg Arch in Monument Valley	“Diablo,” the Navajo horse.
East and West Mitten, and Merrick Butte; the view from our hotel room.

The floor of the valley and lower slopes of the buttes and mesas are comprised of red and reddish brown sandstones and siltsones of the Permian Organ Rock Formation, deposited by dryland fluvial systems, low-relief aeolian sand sheets and other erg-margin depositional systems.

The vertical cliff faces are aeolian erg deposits of the Permian DeChelley Sandstone. The Lower Triassic Moenkopi (Hoskinni Member) and Upper Triassic Chinle Formation (Shinarump Member) comprise the thinner-bedded units that cap some of the mesas (Demko, 2003).

Kayenta