View to the
southwest with Temple Butte in the right foreground and
Palisades Creek (First creek on the left side, but partly
obscured) in the left foreground. A portion of the South
Rim can be seen in the upper left corner. Also, a small
portion of the Walhalla Plateau (North Rim) can be seen in the
upper right corner.
This section of the Grand Canyon opens up with
few cliffs near the river. For the next 10 miles the open
areas bordering the river consist of the 3,000-foot thick Dox
Formation. Layers in the Dox are mostly poorly cemented
siltstones and sandstones deposited in a near sea level
environment about 1,100 million years ago. Unlike most of the
rest of the Grand Canyon, the Dox erodes easily and has few
cliffs. The Butte Fault has two major branches that cross the
river in this section. One branch crosses from right (just in
back of Temple Butte) to left (up Palisades Creek). A second
branch crosses the river at Tanner Rapid (Just out of sight
near the center of the picture) and continues to the left up
Tanner Canyon.
View to the
southwest with Lava Butte to the right of the river just above
the lower edge. Tanner Creek originates near the South Rim on
the left side of the picture, and generates Tanner Rapid where
it joins the Colorado (after the river completes its first
turn to the right). Somewhat further in the distance, Unkar
Creek joins the river and forces the river to bend to the left
- briefly out of sight. In the far distance the Shinumo
Quartzite (the next layer down in the Grand Canyon Supergroup)
forms a cliff just before the river turns to the right out of
view.
A major branch of the Butte Fault crosses the
river at Tanner Rapid. If you are rafting the river, you can
see a block of strata that has been faulted downward in
Precambrian time just to the west of the fault. More recently,
movement on this fault has reversed to lift the area west of
the fault (but not as much). It is interesting to note that
river gradient from here westward increases implying that the
fault (or doming along the entire East Kaibab) is still
active.
While the Dox Formation and other layers of the
Grand Canyon Supergroup are best exposed in this area, the
more familiar Paleozoic layers can still be recognized in
higher layers. For example the Tapeats Sandstone forms a
protective cap for the ridge in the lower right quadrant. Just
above this unnamed ridge, the sheer Redwall Limestone cliff
can be seen on Apollo Temple.
Return to
river miles 56 to 64
Continue
to river miles 72 to 80
Return
to
the Index Page for the Grand Canyon Tour
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