Sunrise illuminates our campervan in Goblin Valley State Park Campground, San Rafael Swell, in central Utah, USA. Admire fanciful hoodoos, mushroom shapes, and rock pinnacles in Goblin Valley State Park, in Emery County between the towns of Green River and Hanksville. The Goblin rocks eroded from Entrada Sandstone, which is comprised of alternating layers of sandstone (cross-bedded by former tides), siltstone, and shale debris which were eroded from former highlands and redeposited in beds on a former tidal flat. As part of the Colorado Plateau, the San Rafael Swell is a giant dome-shaped anticline of rock (160-175 million years old) that was pushed up during the Paleocene Laramide Orogeny 60-40 million years ago. Since then, infrequent but powerful flash floods have eroded the sedimentary rocks into valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas, and buttes.
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