Overheard a park ranger in Moab say the red rock isn't actually red

I was hiking near the Delicate Arch viewpoint last weekend and caught a ranger talking to a group. She said the famous red color is just a thin coating of iron oxide, like rust, on the surface of the sandstone. The rock underneath is mostly a pale tan or white. I mean, I always just thought the whole rock was red through and through. It kind of blew my mind a little. Has anyone else had a moment where a simple fact totally changed how you looked at a landscape?

3 comments

3 Comments

wyatt_green3mo agoMost Upvoted

Man, that reminds me of finding out most sand is just tiny bits of quartz. It's basically all the same clear stuff, just stained different colors by other junk. Makes a beach feel less special somehow.

nora103mo ago

Read a geology blog that explained how the color in places like the Painted Desert is basically just a sunburn. The deep rock is a dull grey, but the surface gets baked and the minerals rust. It made me look at all those striped cliffs differently, like they're not solid color but more like a paint job that chips off. Saw a fresh rockfall in a canyon once and the broken pieces inside were a totally different, lighter color than the outside. Felt like seeing behind the scenery.

tylerw921mo ago

That fresh rockfall thing hit me, man. I used to look at those canyon walls and think the color went all the way through. Like it was just the way the rock was born. But seeing that darker sun-baked crust versus the pale broken inside. You realize most of the planet is just wearing a thin layer of dirt and rust. It's like the whole earth is just a weathered old truck that's been sitting out too long. That geology blog flipped a switch for me too. Makes you wonder what everything actually looks like underneath.