The Maze and Land of Standing Rocks
The Maze, an intricately carved series of canyons and gullies, has been called a “Thirty-square-mile puzzle in sandstone” (Findley, 1971, p. 71-73), and one can readily visualize a king-sized rat struggling in vain to find a way out. The rock is the Cedar Mesa Sandstone, which here underlies red shales beneath the White Rim Sandstone. South of The Maze an area containing tall spires was appropriately named by the Indians “Toom’-pin wu-near’ Tu-weap’,” or “Land of Standing Rocks” (Powell, 1875, p. 154).
West of The Maze is Elaterite Basin, so named because of a dark-brown elastic mineral resin called elaterite, which seeps from the White Rim Sandstone. One of these seeps is shown in [figure 34], and a wedge-shaped layer of the sandstone is shown in [figure 35]. In the Range Canyon area shown in [figure 35], sand was being laid down in an offshore bar at the left, while red silts and muds were being deposited on land to the right. The dark bed just above the White Rim near the middle of the photograph is the Hoskinnini Tongue of the Moenkopi Formation, which intertongues with and pinches out in beds of the Moenkopi Formation to left. These are excellent examples of what geologists call facies changes.
South of the Land of Standing Rocks are equally colorful areas known as The Fins and Ernies Country (named after Ernie Larson, an early-day sheep man). A prominent row of spires near Cataract Canyon is known as The Doll House ([fig. 36]).
ELATERITE SEEPING FROM WHITE RIM SANDSTONE in Elaterite Basin west of The Maze. Elaterite is a dark-brown elastic mineral resin. Photograph by Donald L. Baars. (Fig. 34)
WHITE RIM SANDSTONE in north wall of Range Canyon, south of Elaterite Basin. Bed thins from 230 feet at left (west) to 38 feet at right (east), and disappears (by facies change into red shales) a short distance farther east. See description in text of pinch out of Hoskinnini Tongue. Bed at top of mesa is Moss Back Member of Chinle Formation. Photograph by Donald L. Baars. (Fig. 35)
THE DOLL HOUSE, eroded from Cedar Mesa Sandstone just west of Spanish Bottom, above Cataract Canyon. Notice the red layer at right offset by a fault. Photograph by Parker Hamilton, Flagstaff, Ariz. (Fig. 36)