News Paper Rock

Located east of Moab, UT is a rock the Navajo Indians refer to as “Tse’ Hane’ “ meaning “A rock that tells a story”. The sandstone boulder is etched approximately 2,000 years ago and is believed to be the works of the Archaic, Basketmaker, Fremont, and Pueblo Cultures. Unfortunately, we do not know if the figures represent story telling, doodling, hunting magic, clan symbols, ancient graffiti or something else. In 1961 Newspaper Rock was listed on the United States Register of National Historical Places and was designates a state historical monument in 1961. Please do not write on or touch the rock and remain on designated walking paths. The soil is alive so wake you step! Once called cryptogamic soil, this dark crust covers much of the untrampled desert. Composed of cyanobacteria as well as lichen, algae and fungi, this covering protects against erosion, absorbs moisture provided nitrogen and other nutrients for plant growth. Avoid crushing these life-giving organisms. Stay on trails. Without these crusts, many of the larger plants could not survive, and if the plants go, so do the animals. The desert could lose much of the life that makes it such a magical place.

Newspaper rock is made from Navajo Sandstone. Navajo Sandstone frequently occurs as spectacular cliffs, cuestas, domes, and bluffs rising from the desert floor. It can be distinguished from adjacent Jurassic sandstones by its white to light pink color, meter-scale cross-bedding, and distinctive rounded weathering.

The wide range of colors exhibited by the Navajo Sandstone reflect a long history of alteration by groundwater and other subsurface fluids over the last 190 million years. The different colors, except for white, are caused by the presence of varying mixtures and amounts of hematite, goethite, and limonite filling the pore space within the quartz sand comprising the Navajo Sandstone. The iron in these strata originally arrived via the erosion of iron-bearing silicate minerals. Initially, this iron accumulated as iron-oxide coatings, which formed slowly after the sand had been deposited. Later, after having been deeply buried, reducing fluids composed of water and hydrocarbons flowed through the thick red sand which once comprised the Navajo Sandstone. The dissolution of the iron coatings by the reducing fluids bleached large volumes of the Navajo Sandstone a brilliant white. Reducing fluids transported the iron in solution until they mixed with oxidizing groundwater. Where the oxidizing and reducing fluids mixed, the iron precipitated within the Navajo Sandstone. Depending on local variations within the permeability, porosity, fracturing, and other inherent rock properties of the sandstone, varying mixtures of hematite, goethite, and limonite precipitated within spaces between quartz grains. Variations in the type and proportions of precipitated iron oxides resulted in the different crimson, vermillion, orange, salmon, peach, pink, gold, and yellow colors of the Navajo Sandstone. The precipitation of iron oxides also formed laminea, corrugated layers, columns, and pipes of ironstone within the Navajo Sandstone. Being harder and more resistant to erosion than the surrounding sandstone, the ironstone weathered out as ledges, walls, fins, "flags", towers, and other minor features, which stick out and above the local landscape in unusual shape.

Logging Requirements

Send me a note with the following:

1.    (Optional) A picture of you/group in front of Newspaper rock.

2.    Why does this Rock Art not have an exact date?

3.    Measure the size of the stone and estimate the weight using 82 pounds per cubic foot.

4.    Why is sandstone a common petroglyph material?

Placement approved by the
BLM Monticello Utah Field Office
435-587-1500