Zion National Park
Canyonlands National Park
Arches National Park
Bryce Canyon National Park
Antelope Canyon
Mesa Verde National Park
Monument Valley
Capitol Reef National Park
Canyon De Chelly
Aztec Ruins
Chaco Canyon

Cedar Breaks National Monument, UT
Grand Canyon
Glen Canyon
Petrified forest
Sedona, Az
Jerome Az
Moab Utah
Dead Horse Point National Park
Tuzigoot
Bandelier
Cecar Breaks
Great Basin

Resting on top of the Colorado plateau, at over 10,000 feet in elevation, a breathtaking view awaits. Millions of years of sedimentation, uplift, and erosion are carving out a giant amphitheater that spans some three miles, and is more than 2000 feet deep.

The geology of Cedar Breaks started around 60 million years ago. The amphitheater one can see from various viewpoints today, was created through 3 geological events: deposition, uplift, and erosion.

The plateau that Cedar Breaks is currently located on was much lower than it is today.  During this time, the area was completely covered by a lake. This lake became known as LakeClaron. The lake was 70 miles wide and 250 miles long.  Surrounding highlands began to erode away and these sediments were carried away by wind and water into LakeClaron.  These sediments settled at the bottom of this lake. Algae that naturally lived in the lake would eventually die forming a paste that cemented all the sediments together to form the sedimentary rock that is visible at Cedar Breaks today. 

The sedimentary rock visible at Cedar Breaks is limestone. The colors visible in the rock come from various amounts of oxidized irons (red and orange hues) and manganese (purple hues).  This entire formation became known as the Claron formation or Pink Cliffs.

The Southern Paiute thought that the oddly-shaped rock formations that we call ‘hoodoos’ were actually frozen people:   people who had done bad things, and as a result, were trapped in stone.  The Southern Paiute and their Neo-archaic ancestors have likely observed the strange hoodoos and other rock formations of Cedar Breaks for a very long time.  From 1100 AD to the present, they have had a presence in Cedar Breaks and the surrounding area (a land area spanning from the Great Basin to southern California).  

The lasting Southern Paiute presence in the Cedar Breaks area has been well-documented.  Over a 4-year period (1996-1999), archaeologists surveyed 2,318 acres within the Monument and additional acres of the surrounding Dixie National Forest.  Results concerning the lengthy Southern Paiute presence in the area included the discovery of ceramics, sherds, debitage (material resulting from the manufacture of stone tools), projectile points and tools like scrapers, choppers, and hammerstones.