This is a slightly shorter post today for just Mosaic Canyon.

See Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4 or Part 5

We finally visited Mosaic Canyon, which is pretty great for megabreccia:

A person in hiking attire observes a large angular boulder stuck in an otherwise smooth vertical canyon wall.

Mosaic Canyon is also well known for smaller breccia (the “Mosaic", in my opinion!) and smooth dolomite or what most would consider to be marble:

A person hiking on an overcast day through a narrow canyon with breccia overlying dolomite on the left and all dolomite on the right.

A closer view of the cream colored Noonday Dolomite. Plenty here for a geologist to chat your ear off about ;-):

Noonday dolomite bedrock with yellow to cream and white textures, and a portion of a person's shoe in the bottom center. There are swirling strain indicators in this rock. Some rain drops are visible.

Pretty rapidly the canyon broadens as the rocks become marine sedimentary or metasedimentary rocks and thus far more erodible than dolomite:

A barren mountainous landscape with hikers on a rocky dry gray broad braided stream area. The canyon walls are vertical and tan. A mountain with tan to brown to gray colors looms over tiny looking hikers.

After gazing at the amazing erosional surfaces in the sedimentary rock face, one must negotiate steep and smooth dolomite by sliding down it:

A hiker sliding down a steep, cream colored dolomite canyon floor. Beyond the hiker is a vertical wall of sedimentary rock overlying the dolomite.

And that’s a wrap for Mosaic Canyon. Maybe one more part in this series‽ 

Interior view of a car with wet windows indicating rainy weather, visible dashboard displays, and a central touchscreen console, likely a Subaru model, with a view of a barren landscape outside. The dashboard shows it is 67 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

See Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3 or Part 4 or Part 5