What are those groovy rocks and how did they get that way?
by Carole McCalla

On a hike around Lake Blanche below Sundial Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon, a group of hikers came across long, straight, parallel grooves on a smooth, polished rock surface. Recalling another location where they had seen similar features at the foot of the mountains north of downtown Salt Lake City, they wondered if these markings were formed in the same way. Indeed, what exactly are they and how were they formed?

Although the smooth, grooved surfaces at these two locations are similar, they were actually formed in very different ways.

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VIEW SURVEY NOTES

Does Utah have the biggest natural arch in the world? Yes. Sort of. Depends on your definition of “biggest”.

Mapping geologists with the Utah Geological Survey recently published an article in the May 2009 edition of Survey Notes that attempts to answer that question. “In nearly three decades of working in Utah’s geology, I have been asked many times, ‘What is the largest/longest/biggest arch in the world?’” says Grant Willis, article author and UGS mapping geologist. “For years I told people it was Landscape Arch in Arches National Park.”

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Related Links

Natural Arch and Bridge Society Web site

Survey Notes- May 2009 article

Salt Lake Tribune article

Deseret News article

KSL.com article