BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK – In the mood to view a hoodoo?
The place for that is Utah’s Bryce Canyon National Park. Nowhere else in the world has this many of the unique rock formations created by years of erosion in one place.
Hoodoos have also been called “tent rocks,” “fairy chimneys,” or “earth pyramids.”
They need the right conditions to form over millions of years. In Bryce Canyon’s case, an ancient lake and floodplain system led to the development of limestones, dolostones, mudstones, siltstones and sandstones. Tectonic action caused the entire area to uplift to a higher elevation. And now, Bryce Canyon’s rocks are in the “goldilocks zone,” where the temperatures lead to freezing and below-freezing temperatures more than 170 nights out of the year. The water trapped inside the rock expands, leading to erosion. The final ingredient is rain.
“The (slightly) acidic rain is enough to dissolve the calcium carbonate that holds these rocks together and allows them to erode into their current shape,” according to the National Park Service.
Plus, one of the hoodoos looks like Thor’s hammer!
