Painted Desert
The Painted Desert is a broad area of badlands located on the Colorado Plateau in Northern Arizona. It covers at least 146 square miles (380 km2), and stretches from 30 miles (48 km) north of Cameron, near the Grand Canyon, ending just beyond the Petrified Forest. The Painted Desert derives its name from the multitude of colored sediments and bentonite clay seen from its Chinle rock formation, left exposed by erosion. In the southern portion of the desert, the remains of a Triassic period coniferous forest have fossilized over millions of years. Most of the Painted Desert is located within the Navajo Nation, and is only accessible by foot.
Read more about this topic: Geography Of Arizona, Deserts
Famous quotes containing the words painted and/or desert:
“When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
When our table with cherries and nuts is spread:
Come live, and be merry, and join with me
To sing the sweet chorus of ‘Ha, ha, he!’”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced: yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)