Blue Canyon is located in the Hopi's Reservation near Tuba City,
Arizona. In the past hikers and photographers could visit there
without a permit, but today it requires a licensed Hopi's tour
guide to accompany all visitors. Our tour guide Evelyn Fredericks
provided our team with valuable guidance. Most parts of the dirt
road to Blue Canyon are passable, but some parts consist of soft
sands, and therefore we closely followed Evelyn's car to bypass
the "traps." One part of the road was deeply depressed, and as a
remedy Evelyn's assistant filled in the ditch with
dirt.
I have seen many hoodoos in some other places before, but Mother
nature always give me surprises. In Blue Canyon there are
irregular white marks on red rocks. At first glance they seems to
be human-made. I told my friends that perhaps millions years ago
some aliens from another planet visited the canyon and
documented their visitation on the rocks. Professor of Geology
Steven Semken explained the process of formation to me as follows:
The white streaks are resulted from a geochemical process like
bleaching. The red rocks are colored by the presence of ferric
iron while the white marks were formed by organic materials or
weak acids. that reduce the Fe3+ to ferrous iron, Fe2+, which
renders the rock pale green or white. In Blue Canyon the bleaching
process concentrated along the fractures or inclusions (more pictures below).
