Vermilion Cliffs National Monument is located in Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

, immediately south of the Utah state line. This National Monument, 294,000 acre (1,189 km²) in area, protects the Paria Plateau, Vermilion Cliffs

Vermilion Cliffs

The Vermilion Cliffs are the second "step" up in the five-step Grand Staircase of the Colorado Plateau. Reddish or vermilion-colored cliffs are found along U.S. Highway 89 and U.S. Highway 89A near Kanab, Utah . They extend from a location near Page, Arizona, west for a considerable distance, in...

, Coyote Buttes

Coyote Buttes

Coyote Buttes is a section of the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness managed by the Bureau of Land Management , spanning extreme South Central Utah and North Central Arizona, just south of US 89 halfway between Kanab, Utah and Page, Arizona....

, and Paria Canyon. Elevations in the Monument range from 3,100 feet to 6,500 feet above sea level (944 to 1,981 meters).

Creation and designation

Established on November 9, 2000, by a Presidential proclamation by Pres. Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument was carved from existing lands already under the management of the U.S. Government in extreme northern Coconino County, Arizona

Coconino County, Arizona

-2010:Whereas according to the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau:*61.7% White*1.2% Black*27.3% Native American*1.4% Asian*0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander*3.1% Two or more races*5.2% Other races*13.5% Hispanic or Latino -2000:...

, immediately south of the border with the state of Utah

Utah

Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...

. The monument is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Vermilion Cliffs themselves run along the southern and eastern edges of this National Monument. Much of the Monument's land consists of the Paria Plateau, a flat area extending northward from the tops of the cliffs.

Vermilion Cliffs

The Vermilion Cliffs are steep eroded escarpments consisting primarily of sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

, siltstone

Siltstone

Siltstone is a sedimentary rock which has a grain size in the silt range, finer than sandstone and coarser than claystones.- Description :As its name implies, it is primarily composed of silt sized particles, defined as grains 1/16 - 1/256 mm or 4 to 8 on the Krumbein phi scale...

, limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

, and shale

Shale

Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...

 which rise as much as 3,000 feet (915 meters) above their bases. These sedimentary rocks have been deeply eroded for millions of years, exposing hundreds of layers of richly colored rock strata. Mesa

Mesa

A mesa or table mountain is an elevated area of land with a flat top and sides that are usually steep cliffs. It takes its name from its characteristic table-top shape....

s, butte

Butte

A butte is a conspicuous isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; it is smaller than mesas, plateaus, and table landform tables. In some regions, such as the north central and northwestern United States, the word is used for any hill...

s, and large tablelands are interspersed with somne steep canyons, where some small streams provide enough moisture to support a sampling of wildlife.

Flora and fauna

More than twenty species of raptor

Bird of prey

Birds of prey are birds that hunt for food primarily on the wing, using their keen senses, especially vision. They are defined as birds that primarily hunt vertebrates, including other birds. Their talons and beaks tend to be relatively large, powerful and adapted for tearing and/or piercing flesh....

s including bald eagle

Bald Eagle

The Bald Eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. It is the national bird and symbol of the United States of America. This sea eagle has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle...

s and golden eagle

Golden Eagle

The Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...

s, peregrine falcon

Peregrine Falcon

The Peregrine Falcon , also known as the Peregrine, and historically as the Duck Hawk in North America, is a widespread bird of prey in the family Falconidae. A large, crow-sized falcon, it has a blue-gray back, barred white underparts, and a black head and "moustache"...

s, and several species of hawk

Hawk

The term hawk can be used in several ways:* In strict usage in Australia and Africa, to mean any of the species in the subfamily Accipitrinae, which comprises the genera Accipiter, Micronisus, Melierax, Urotriorchis and Megatriorchis. The large and widespread Accipiter genus includes goshawks,...

s have been observed. The endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 of bird, the California condor

California Condor

The California Condor is a New World vulture, the largest North American land bird. Currently, this condor inhabits only the Grand Canyon area, Zion National Park, and coastal mountains of central and southern California and northern Baja California...

, has been re-introduced into this region recently due to its remote location and lack of human habitation to interfere with the condors. Desert bighorn sheep

Desert Bighorn Sheep

The Desert Bighorn Sheep is a subspecies of Bighorn Sheep that occurs in the desert Southwest regions of the United States and in the northern regions of Mexico. The trinomial of this species commemorates the American naturalist Edward William Nelson...

, pronghorn

Pronghorn

The pronghorn is a species of artiodactyl mammal endemic to interior western and central North America. Though not an antelope, it is often known colloquially in North America as the prong buck, pronghorn antelope, or simply antelope, as it closely resembles the true antelopes of the Old World and...

s, and mountain lions make up most of the large mammal

Mammal

Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...

s found here, with about 30 more species of smaller mammals living here. Several examples of rare fish species, such as the "flannelmouth sucker" and the "speckled dace" live in the streams within this National Monument. The Welsh's milkweed, a threatened

Threatened species

Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...

 plant species that grows on sand dunes, and helps stabilize them, is known to only exist in this National Monument and in one other area in neighboring Utah.

Human settlements

Human settlement in the region dates back 12,000 years, and hundreds of Native American

Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 pueblo

Pueblo

Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...

s are spread across this National Monument. The remains of the native's villages, with houses, granaries, burial areas, and associated ruins, can be found here. This National Monument also contains one of the largest number of rock art sites in any nationally-protected area. Many of these petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

s are believed to be among some of the oldest in the United States.

The first white explorers into the region were Spanish missionaries and explorers from the 1776 Dominguez-Escalante Expedition

Dominguez-Escalante Expedition

The Dominguez-Escalante Expedition was conducted in 1776 to find an overland route from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Spanish missions in California...

. Later on, Mormon

Mormon

The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...

 explorers searched the region, during the 1860s, and some of them settled on land that is now within the monument. They built one of the first ferry crossings on the Colorado River

Colorado River

The Colorado River , is a river in the Southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The watershed of the Colorado River covers in parts of seven U.S. states and two Mexican states...

 in 1871. During that same year, John Wesley Powell

John Wesley Powell

John Wesley Powell was a U.S. soldier, geologist, explorer of the American West, and director of major scientific and cultural institutions...

 ventured through this region during his scientific explorations of the Colorado River plateau

Plateau

In geology and earth science, a plateau , also called a high plain or tableland, is an area of highland, usually consisting of relatively flat terrain. A highly eroded plateau is called a dissected plateau...

.

Below the Vermillion cliffs runs the historic "wedding trail", a wagon route of Mormons who jorneyed to have their marriages sealed in the temple at St. George, Utah, and then to return. The route, through remote country, was otherwise seldom used. Historical markers denote this history.

Today, the region surrounding the monument is relatively unspoiled with virtually no permanent human inhabitants remaining and limited road access.