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).
[Illustration: 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)]
[Illustration: 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)]
[Illustration: 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)]