Bisti/ De-Na-Zin Wilderness Arroyo

Artwork ID # 2306-36727-5

The Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness Area is a rolling badlands area with some of the most striking and preposterous scenery found in the Four Corners Region. It is a fantasy Land of weathered sandstone forms known as hoodoos. They are composed of pinnacles, cap rocks, spires and scenes which defy the imagination. Many fossils occur here as well as large petrified wood logs. These ornately sculpted sandstones and clay in New Mexico's Bisti Badlands are weathered into a field of hoodoos, overlain in the background by dark-colored bank of mudstones and coal. This landscape is, in essence, a depiction of " deep time ". It describes evidence of a Cretaceous Era river delta on the western edge of the Western Interior Seaway, which once split what is now North America into two separate landmasses. Translated from the Navajo language, Bisti ( Bis-tie ) means large area of shale hills. De-Na-Zin ( Deh-nah-zin) takes its name from the Navajo words for "cranes". There are formations in the area which resemble Cranes, Birds of Paradise, a Dodo Bird,Condors, Wolfs, Dinosaurs, Nefertiti ,Camels, Cracked eggs, and whatever you can imagine. A true wonderland of beauty and magic.

New MexicoBisti Wilderness AreaBureau of Land ManagementTrails of the Ancients BywaydinosaursKT boundryextinction eventSan Juan Basinscenicbadlandsmudstoneclaypetrified woodvolcanic clinkerslimestonehoodooshigh desertarchesravinesgulliesdry washsilt ligniteerosionmysteriousChacoan cultureOjo Alamo formationFruitland formationarroyoCretaceousriver deltablackredcoalKirtland shaleligniteDeNaZin WildernessSan Juan County

From Wilderness Series Archive - "An ARCHIVE of every WILDERNESS SERIES image"