Thor’s Hammer, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah

Over the ages, rainwater, snow and expanding ice have carved Thor’s Hammer (large pinnacle at right center) and myriads of other pinnacles, hoodoos and towers from the sediments of a huge, ancient fresh-water lake which covered this region during the early Tertiary period. Known as the Claron Formation, this fifty million year-old layer of sediment forms the highest and therefore youngest “step” in the Grand Staircase of sandstone layers which march south to the edge of the Grand Canyon. Due to the soft nature of this sandstone, the erosion processes continue here today at a geological rate so rapid that changes to the formations can easily be witnessed within the span of an average human lifetime.