Antelope Canyon near Page, Arizona 1

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Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon on the Navajo reservation in northeastern Arizona. We visited it en route from the north rim of the Grand Canyon to the south rim. (Our next posts will be about the Grand Canyon.)

The canyon was created by water flowing over Navajo sandstone and cutting down through joints in the rock.

Normally the canyon is dry, but during flash floods, water flows through the canyon with a powerful current carrying suspended sand, abrading and smoothing the walls of the canyon as it goes. The curves in the walls were carved by the current deflecting from one wall to another.

The striations in the walls are bedding in the original sandstone, showing the varying slopes of the dunes on which the sand had been deposited.