Arches National Park - Park Avenue EarthCache
Arches National Park - Park Avenue
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Park Avenue is one of the first significant stops as you drive through Arches National Park from the Visitor Center.
This cache should be wheelchair accessible from the carpark.
Park Avenue in Arches National Park, Utah
Some people think the towers and spires of Park Avenue remind them of New York City, hence its name.
As with almost all of the rock formations in Arches National Park, the spectacular shapes have come about due to a significant quantity of salt building up in the area. After the salt was laid down over a wide area, more and more sand was deposited over the top of it. As time went on, this sand got crushed together under its own weight and created sandstone. Effectively different types of sand were deposited over millions of years. These created different sandstone layers.
As more and more sandstone built up, the rock on top of the salt grew so heavy that the salt could no longer hold its weight. The salt effectively started to collapse in many different places and the sandstone on top of it collapsed too. This left some parts of the sandstone still standing. As these standing pieces started to age and weather, some parts collapsed and created arches and other weird and wonderful shapes.
Park Avenue was created like this and it is an exceptionally good place to see the main layers of sandstone that are visible in the Park. It gives a good understanding of how sandstone layers built up which is useful as you travel deeper into the National Park. There is a very helpful sign explaining these layers here and the questions below are based on this sign.
There is an option to hike into the Park here, but you do not need to do this to log the cache. A walk of a couple of hundred yards from the car park will take you to some signs giving you information you need to log this cache.
To log the cache, Please answer the following questions and mail me the answers by clicking on my username at the top left of this cache page - please do not post the answers in your log:
1) - How many distinct layers of sandstone can you see at Park Avenue
2) - Name each of these layers, ordering them by age (newest first)
3) - Estimate for me what percentage of the newest layer of sandstone is visible (i.e. what percentage of the top layer is still remaining). Why do you think this is?
4) - Where else in the National Park can you see this newest layer of rock?
5) - Optionally (but desirably) take a photo of you holding your GPS (or just your GPS if you are by yourself) at the location
After less than 2 weeks from this cache being published, I have already had somebody trying to log this cache using info from the web that was not very accurate. Please don't waste my time trying to log this cache in this manner. I will not accept answers that are not those stated on the sign.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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