Bungonia Slot Canyon is an Easy-Access Canyon Adventure (NSW) Always liked the look of canyoning but thought it seemed like a lot of work? At only two hours from Sydney and with no abseiling or specialist gear required, Bungonia Slot Canyon in the Bungonia National Park should be your next adventure. Two short canyons drain into a small, well hidden gorge that opens onto the Wolgan Valley. The northern canyon is a long straight sheer-sided slot that might have been sliced with a knife. The canyon has 2 arms, again with sheer walls. The southern canyon is a narrow meandering slot chewed out of the surrounding rock. Bungonia The sandstone slot canyons near Sydney are all found in the Greater Blue Mountains area. They lie in the northern half of the Blue Mountains National Park, in Wollemi NP, with some in the Gardens of Stone NP and in nearby State Forest or Crown Land. They can be found in a narrow band running north-south, on the western side of the ranges. 2 National Herbarium of New South Wales, Mrs Macquarie’s Road, Sydney, NSW, 2000 AUSTRALIA. Walled slot canyons occur at many places, the deepest.
A beam of sunlight in Upper Antelope Canyon
A slot canyon is a long, narrow, deep and tortuous channel or drainageway with sheer rock walls that are typically eroded into either sandstone or other sedimentary rock. A slot canyon has depth-to-width ratios that typically exceed 10:1 over most of its length and can approach 100:1. The term is especially used in the semiarid western United States, including the Colorado Plateau region. Slot canyons are subject to flash flooding and commonly contain unique ecological communities that are distinct from the adjacent, drier uplands.[1] Some slot canyons can measure less than 1 metre (3 ft) across at the top but drop more than 30 metres (100 ft) to the floor of the canyon.
Many slot canyons are formed in sandstone and limestone rock, although slot canyons in other rock types such as granite and basalt are possible. Even in sandstone and limestone, only a very small number of streams will form slot canyons due to a combination of the particular characteristics of the rock and regional rainfall.
Slot canyons around the world[edit]
Slot canyons are found in many parts of the world, predominantly in areas with low rainfall. Some of the best-known slot canyons are to be found in the Southwestern United States. Other significant areas include the Sierra de Guara in northern Spain, the Pyrenees on the border of France and Spain, and the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, Australia.
Knox Gorge, Karijini National Park
Australia[edit]
The largest known area of slot canyons in Australia is in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. They occur in a narrow band of sandstone that runs roughly 30 kilometres (19 mi) from east to west, and about 100 kilometres (62 mi) from south to north. The majority of these canyons are in the Wollemi Wilderness, and are difficult to access. A small number are regularly visited by canyoners on weekends in summer. The Grand Canyon, near Blackheath, has a tourist track along its rim, but requires abseiling (rappelling) or swimming to visit fully.
Sandstone slot canyons can also be found in a few more remote parts of Australia, including Karijini National Park and the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park, both in Western Australia, and Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland.
Wire Pass leading into Buckskin Gulch, Utah
United States[edit]
Southern Utah has the densest population of slot canyons in the world with over one thousand slot canyons in the desert lands south of Interstate 70.[2] Utah's slot canyons are found in Zion National Park at The Narrows, along Canyonlands National Park's Joint Trail, throughout Capitol Reef National Park, within the San Rafael Swell and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, especially along the Escalante River drainage including Coyote Gulch. Many more slot canyons are located on public Bureau of Land Management and state-owned lands in southern Utah, in areas surrounding the aforementioned parks and monuments. Buckskin Gulch—one of the longest slot canyons in the world—begins in southern Utah and continues into northern Arizona within the Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness. Northern Arizona also has a high concentration of slot canyons including Antelope Canyon and Secret Canyon, which are two of the most famous slot canyons located near Page on land owned by the Navajo Nation. Slot canyons are also located in the valley between U.S. Route 89 and the Vermilion Cliffs in Arizona, and can be seen as one descends into the valley on U.S. 89, but these are on the Navajo reservation and are closed to the public. The Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument's slot canyon trail in New Mexico is unique as it was carved into tuff (volcanic ash). In California, several slot canyons are located within Death Valley National Park.
Lower Antelope Canyon, Arizona
Drowning danger[edit]
Local as well as distant storms can cause dangerous flash flooding in slot canyons, and hikers should not enter them if there is any sign of rain in the surrounding area.[3] In many slot canyons, it can be miles before a safe exit or rescue is possible.
On August 12, 1997, eleven tourists, including seven from France, one from the United Kingdom, one from Sweden and two from the United States, were killed in Lower Antelope Canyon by a flash flood.[4][5] Very little rain fell at the site that day, but an earlier thunderstorm had dumped a large amount of water into the canyon basin, seven miles upstream. The lone survivor of the flood was tour guide Francisco 'Poncho' Quintana, who had prior swift-water training. At the time, the ladder system consisted of amateur-built wood ladders that were swept away by the flash flood. Today, ladder systems have been bolted in place, and deployable cargo nets are installed at the top of the canyon. A NOAA Weather Radio from the National Weather Service and an alarm horn are stationed at the fee booth.[6]
Gallery[edit]
- The Siq and Al-Khazneh (the Treasury), Petra, Jordan
- Taminaschlucht, Tamina River, Switzerland
- The Narrows, Zion National Park, Utah
- Kasha-Katuwe, New Mexico
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Department of Agriculture document: 'Soil Survey of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Area, Parts of Kane and Garfield Counties, Utah'(PDF). U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service. p. 305. Retrieved September 30, 2019.
- ^Zion slot canyons
- ^'Safety Tips'. blm.gov. Bureau of Land Management. 2016-03-24. Archived from the original on 2016-09-30. Retrieved 1 November 2016.
- ^'Flash Flood Antelope Canyon'. Retrieved 2006-03-20.
- ^'Antelope Canyon'. Archived from the original on 17 March 2006. Retrieved 2006-03-20.
- ^Kramer, Kelly (2008). 'Man vs. Wild'. Arizona Highways. 84 (11): 23.
External links[edit]
Media related to Slot canyons at Wikimedia Commons
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Slot_canyon&oldid=987994128'
The largest known area of slot canyons in Australia is in the Blue MountainsJust a few hours’ drive west of Sydney, Australia’s rugged Blue Mountain region is home to hundreds of canyons – deep fissures created by the erosive effects of water rushing through sandstone. The Blue Mountain region is a an ancient sedimentary plateau deeply incised by river erosion and densely carpeted in eucalyptus. They occur in a narrow band of sandstone that runs roughly 30 km (19 mi) from east to west, and about 100 km (62 mi) from south to north. The majority of these canyons are in the Wollemi Wilderness, and are difficult to access
Slot Canyon Near Vegas
Canyons are like grooves formed in the Earth from water erosion. The most famous of the world's canyons is the Grand Canyon in Arizona. This is an example of a slot canyon after millions of years of being worn down by the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon is not the only awe-inspiring canyon on Earth. The Colca Canyon in Peru is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon though less steep. Antelope Canyon in Arizona is the most photographed sandstone canyon in the world.Bound by cliffs and cut by erosion, canyons are deep, narrow valleys in the Earth's crust that evoke superlatives and a sense of wonder. Layers of rock outline stories of regional geology like the table of contents to a scientific text.
The landforms commonly break parched terrain where rivers are the major force to sculpt the land. They are also found on ocean floors where the torrents of currents dig underwater graves. When glaciers co-opted the former river beds, they widened and smoothed out most of our canyons, leaving wide u-shaped valleys. With the retreat of the ice, the rivers had to begin anew. Essentially, the larger the difference in height between the river and its its outlet, the more energy the river will expend in the process of erosion. Much of this energy will be expended towards increasing the efficiency of the drainage system, and facilitating a speedy drop in elevation.
The Canyons of the Blue Mountains in NSW are :________________________________________________________________________________________'Grand' is the word used to describe one of the most famous canyons of all. Cut by the Colorado River over the last few million years, the Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 kilometers) long, more than 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) deep, but only 18 miles (29 kilometers) across at its widest yawn.
Layers of rock in the Grand Canyon tell much about the Colorado Plateau's formative years: a mountain range built with two-billion-year-old rock and then eroded away; sediments deposited from an ancient sea; more mountains; more erosion; another sea; a burst of volcanic activity; and the birth of a river that has since carved the chasm by washing the layers away.
Each layer erodes differently. Some crumble into slopes, others sheer cliffs. They stack together like a drunken staircase that leads to the river's edge. A mixture of minerals gives each layer a distinctive hue of yellow, green, or red.
Canyon Types
Box Canyons
Other canyons start where a spring sprouts from the base of a cliff as if out of nowhere. Such cliffs are composed of permeable, or porous, rock. Instead of flowing off the cliff, water seeps down into the rock until it hits an impermeable layer beneath and is forced to leak sideways. Where the water emerges, the cliff wall is weakened and eventually collapses. A box canyon forms as sections of wall collapse further and further back into the land. The heads of these canyons are marked by cliffs on at least three sides.
Box Canyon
Box canyons form when water emerges from a rock face. When the water meets an impermeable layer of stone it seeps into the surrounding permeable layers until it saturates the area. This saturation weakens the stone and it collapses, breaking away in layers. This forms a wide, three-sided canyon. Box Canyon in Florence, Arizona, is a prime example of where the water eroded the Slot Canyon Nevada
soft volcanic bedrock to form this type of geologic feature.Slot Canyons
Slot canyons are narrow corridors sliced into eroding plateaus by periodic bursts of rushing water. Some measure less than a few feet across but drop several hundred feet to the floor.
Slot Canyon Nsw Real Estate
Slot Canyon
Slot Canyon Nsw Map
A slot canyon is formed by rushing water. This occurs mainly on mountains where there is a steep landscape causing water to flow rapidly. The rushing water cuts down into the rock wearing a deep, narrow trench characterized by a 'V' shape. Zion National Park in Utah features a breathtaking display of what this type of erosion can do. A hairline fracture in a piece of stone after a few thousand years of flowing water breaking it open.