Chapter 8: Appalachia and the Ozarks

     Although the state of Arizona is not a part of the Appalachia and Ozarks region, nor is it even close, Arizona actually has a lot to thank the area for in the creation of its own physiography. 

     The Colorado Plateau is a physiological region that encompasses the Four Corners area of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and almost the entire northern half of Arizona.  The formation of the Colorado Plateau actually shares its past with the Appalachians.  Creationists have employed provenance studies in tracing the long distance transport of rocks to determine the paleo flow regime and transport distance. For instance, powerful currents in the northern Rockies region of the United States eroded and transported quartzite rocks both east and west: up to 1,300 km to the east and about 640 km to the west.  This long distance transport phenomenon also applies to the formation of the Colorado Plateau. (http://creation.com/colorado-plateau-sandstones#endRef7)

    Studies suggest that the grains of the Navajo Sandstone on the Colorado Plateau originated from the Appalachian Mountains.  The Navajo Sandstone is one of the largest supposedly wind-deposited formations in the geological record and is estimated to have once covered up 400,000 km², the size of the state of California.  (Pratt, S., Tracing the Navajo Sandstone, Geotimes 48(11):6–7, 2003)