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Description
El Morro National Monument is located on an ancient east-west trail south of the Zuni Mountains in western New Mexico. El Morro means "the headland" in Spanish. Anglo-American travelers called it Inscription Rock for the numerous petroglyphs and Spanish inscriptions that date back to 1605. There is a reliable water supply on the east side of the rock where runoff from the mesa top collects in a deep pool located in an alcove in the cliff face. In the past, the inscriptions were highlighted with charcoal to make them more visible, This practice has been discontinued, and most of the 17th Century inscriptions are barely visible to the naked eye.

The image shows the top of El Morro, with the storm shrouded Zuni Mountains in the distance. The white sandstone is a paleosol resulting from severe weathering in Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous time that bleached the brown Zuni Sandstone, visible lower down on the cliffs. The Zuni Sandstone is made up of lithified sand dunes of Early and Middle Jurassic age, which represent the southern reaches of the great Jurassic Erg that covered all of the present day Colorado Plateau and extended into surrounding areas. The dunes marched southeast from their source in a shallow sea covering western Utah and Nevada.

The Zuni Sandstone is unconformably overlain by the Dakota Sandstone, a fluvial and near-shore marine deposit of Late Cretaceous age. The Dakota Sandstone is extremely widespread in the Cordilleran region, and extends eastward into the Great Plains. This unit had its source in mountain ranges in present day Nevada and California that had risen up in Late Jurassic time in the former location of the old seaway.

Description
El Morro National Monument is located on an ancient east-west trail south of the Zuni Mountains in western New Mexico. El Morro means "the headland" in Spanish. Anglo-American travelers called it Inscription Rock for the numerous petroglyphs and Spanish inscriptions that date back to 1605. There is a reliable water supply on the east side of the rock where runoff from the mesa top collects in a deep pool located in an alcove in the cliff face. In the past, the inscriptions were highlighted with charcoal to make them more visible, This practice has been discontinued, and most of the 17th Century inscriptions are barely visible to the naked eye.

The image shows the top of El Morro, with the storm shrouded Zuni Mountains in the distance. The white sandstone is a paleosol resulting from severe weathering in Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous time that bleached the brown Zuni Sandstone, visible lower down on the cliffs. The Zuni Sandstone is made up of lithified sand dunes of Early and Middle Jurassic age, which represent the southern reaches of the great Jurassic Erg that covered all of the present day Colorado Plateau and extended into surrounding areas. The dunes marched southeast from their source in a shallow sea covering western Utah and Nevada.

The Zuni Sandstone is unconformably overlain by the Dakota Sandstone, a fluvial and near-shore marine deposit of Late Cretaceous age. The Dakota Sandstone is extremely widespread in the Cordilleran region, and extends eastward into the Great Plains. This unit had its source in mountain ranges in present day Nevada and California that had risen up in Late Jurassic time in the former location of the old seaway.