Traveling along the Zion–Mount Carmel Highway offers close views of Zion National Park’s Navajo Sandstone, including immense cliffs, smooth slickrock domes, colorful patterns, and the distinctive cross-bedding around Checkerboard Mesa. The highway climbs through Pine Creek Canyon before entering the 1.1-mile Zion–Mount Carmel Tunnel, an engineering landmark blasted through the sandstone between 1927 and 1930 (National Park Service [NPS], 2026). The rock began as vast fields of windblown dunes approximately 180 million years ago during the Early Jurassic Period. Its diagonal layers preserve the movement of ancient dunes, while iron minerals contribute to the striking red, pink, yellow, and cream colors seen along the road (NPS, 2015a).
Although the sandstone landscape may appear dry and nearly lifeless, it supports surprisingly diverse habitats. Pinyon, juniper, ponderosa pine, and other hardy plants grow in cracks and small pockets of soil, while water passing through the porous sandstone emerges at springs and seeps, creating hanging gardens filled with mosses, ferns, and wildflowers (NPS, 2024). Tiny zircon crystals also indicate that some of the sand may have traveled from the ancient Appalachian Mountains across much of North America before reaching this region (NPS, 2015b). Recent research adds another interesting chapter: a 2025 study identified six fossil-based biological communities within Navajo Sandstone across the Colorado Plateau, showing that this ancient desert included not only shifting dunes but also groundwater-fed wet areas inhabited by microbes, plants, and animals (Hasiotis et al., 2025).
References:
Hasiotis, S. T., Parrish, J. T., & Chan, M. A. (2025). Paleoecology of the Lower Jurassic Navajo Sandstone (Colorado Plateau, USA). PALAIOS, 40(5), 141–170.
National Park Service. (2015a). Navajo Sandstone.
National Park Service. (2015b). Source of the Navajo sand.
National Park Service. (2024). Plants.
National Park Service. (2026). Zion–Mount Carmel Highway and Tunnel history
AI Disclosure Statement:
Artificial intelligence tools were used in the creation of this page, including elements such as writing, image enhancement, voice enhancement, and/or editing support. All final creative decisions were made by the creator.
Leave a Reply