arches

= **Arches By: Tucker and Jared **  =

__Introduction__

Arches National Park is a national park in Moab, UT which is located in southeastern Utah, USA. 3  This park preserves over 2,000 natural sandstone arches, windows, pinnacles, spires, and delicately carved pinnacles such as the Delicate Arch and Dark Angel. 3  There are so many that if you find one in the park, you can name it. For its size, the park has more natural holes in rocks than anywhere else in the whole world. 3  This area is unlike an other, due to not only the physical beauty but also the geological past the rocks can show us. There are no paths in this dangerous and majestic land outside the main road and as such backpackers need to be extremely cautious when camping or hiking, biking, etc. 2  You can get lost this area with the many sand formations blocking lines of sight. You can easily find shade but little water sources are available unless you are near the southeast area and dehydration is a serious issue. 3  There are vast arches to see but also geological marvels such as the balanced rock, the size of 3 school buses, and Dark Angel, an obelisk created by wind blown sand erosion. 5  At Night the sky is lit up with beautiful stars that can be seen in very few other places. The locals try to limit their light pollution leaving the sky as pristine and majestic, the way nature intended it. 5 

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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Geologic History__

This area is above an underground salt bed that stretches across the Colorado Plateau. This is responsible for the arches. A sea 300 millions years ago dried up and left behind thousands of miles salt under the ground. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> The ocean flowed back depositing more salt in the area. Over the years the salt and debris was compacted into sedimentary rock. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> The salt moved under pressure and as the alt moved it ran into underground faults that caused the salt to move upward. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> The overlying rocks didn't bend as easily and they created parallel fractures. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Over time water flowed into the rocks and dissolved the salt. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> This made the rocks unstable. Then the water continued to carry sand grains away and made the cracks bigger into wider canyons. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> During the winter, water would seep in and freeze the expand. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; vertical-align: super;">7 <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> This process happened until the fins became a thin as they are today <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">

__Climate and Weather__

The climate is hot and dry. 4 Summer temperatures (June-September) can exceed 100 degrees F. 4 Winter temperatures (December-February) can drop below 32 degrees F. 4 Temperature can range up to 50 Degrees in a 24 hour period. 4 The late summer monsoon season brings violent storms and flash floods. 4 bare in mind that this region receives an average of 10 inches of precipitation per year. 4 That being said, even small amounts of precipitation in the winter can make travel impossible over this rocky terrain. 4 The climate has stayed relatively the same in the recent history and as such there is no large geological imprint on the features. The length of the day ranges from 9 hours and 32 minutes in January to 14 hours and 49 minutes in June/July. 6 The rest of the daylight hours curve from Jan 1st upward to July 1st then back down to December 31st. 6

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Biome__ Arches National Park is in a desert biome. You can see a variety of plants from Cactus to desert grasses and small desert animals such as the kangaroo rat in this area. 7 over 52 different mammals call this place home, 186 types of birds and over 400 plants do too. 7 Most of the animals here are nocturnal, they come out at night, so they don't have to deal with the intense heat of the day. 7 Most plants plants in this park can be grouped in either drought escapers (plants that grow annually and only when sufficient water for life is available), drought evaders (plants that only grow near large quantities of water), or drought resistors (Plants that have modifications like spikes that limit the evaporation and water loss in between rainfalls). 2 As you can see everything that lives in the Arches National Park has adapted to its harsh yet beautiful enviornment. 7

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">__Human Impact__

There is some human impact inadvertently. Almost all of the arches are made of sandstone. Acid rain is known to dissolve sandstone. 1 Acid rain is caused by the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, which is caused in part by the driving of more cars and the smoke from factories. 1 This will decrease the time the arches will be here for people to see before they collapse, but new ones are always being discovered. 7 A plant called the tamarisk is an exotic plant that grows in the park. It can be called the "salt cedar" and it can overtake most of the plants in the area. 7 It is said to move at a rate of 12 miles a year. 7 This plant will take valuable water from the other plants in the park and use it. This has become a problem. Another problem is the increase of people that come to the park. A study called VERP takes pictures of the trails and studies them. 7 This is made to help the park make decisions about the amount of people. Another problem happens by people walking outside the trails. Cryptobiotic crust is the bumpy layer that grows on to of the sand in the park. 7 This is seen on the left side of the text. This crust prevents erosion, absorbs water and helps plants grow. 7 This is a very important part of the crust but it is easily damaged. It grows everywhere and if people walk on top of it, it can be ruined immediately.

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__Sources__

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">1. Tarbuck, Edward J., Frederick K. Lutgens, and Dennis Tasa. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,fantasy; font-size: 16px; line-height: 32px;">//<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Prentice Hall Earth Science // <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">. Boston, Mass.: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2009. Print. - Human Impact section

2. http://www..national-park.com/info.htm - Geologic Section <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> 3. http://www.nps.gov/arch/index.htm - Introduction

4. http://www.nps.gov/arch/planyourvisit/weather.htm - Weather Section

5. http://www.arches.national-park.com/info.htm

6. http://aa.usno.navy.mil/cgi-bin/aa_durtablew.pl

7. http://www.nps.gov/arch/forkids/studentinfo.htm - Geologic Section and Biome