The Needles — Sand Dunes Turned to Stone, Then Cut Apart
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Transcript
The Needles district takes its name from colorful spires of Cedar Mesa Sandstone. More than two hundred million years ago, wind-blown sand accumulated here near the edge of a shallow sea, while periodic floods introduced red sediment. Those deposits hardened into layered sandstone. Much later, uplift and erosion exposed the rock, and a dense network of fractures gave water and weather pathways to carve the sandstone into fins, towers and narrow corridors. The alternating red and pale bands therefore record different sediment sources long before the spires existed. The Needles are not objects deposited in the landscape; they are remnants left behind as surrounding rock was removed.