Court of the Patriarchs, Zion National Park, Utah

Early-season snow dusts the soaring sandstone towers known as “Court of the Patriarchs” in this black & white panorama photograph of Zion National Park. Named by the first European settlers in this region over 100 years ago, these formations epitomize the grandeur that led to the designation of Zion National Park in 1919. The Navajo Sandstone of the Colorado Plateau attains its maximum exposed thickness of nearly 2300 feet here in the Zion region. A vast sea of windblown sand similar to today’s Sahara covered much of Utah, Arizona and northwest New Mexico nearly 190 million years ago. As it was subsequently buried under additional layers of sediment, dissolved minerals in groundwater percolated through the grains to cement them together into what we now call the Navajo Sandstone.