For the similarly named structure on the RMS Titanic, see Grand Staircase of the Titanic

Grand Staircase of the Titanic

The phrase Grand Staircase of the RMS Titanic has been used to refer to the first-class entrance aboard the Titanic which contained a large ornate staircase located in the first-class section of the famous White Star Line liner...

For the stairs in the White House

White House

The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...

 see Grand Staircase (White House)

Grand Staircase (White House)

The Grand Staircase is the chief stairway connecting the State Floor and the Second Floor of the White House, the official home of the president of the United States. The stairway is primarily used for a ceremony called the Presidential Entrance March...

The Grand Staircase refers to an immense sequence of sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock

Sedimentary rock are types of rock that are formed by the deposition of material at the Earth's surface and within bodies of water. Sedimentation is the collective name for processes that cause mineral and/or organic particles to settle and accumulate or minerals to precipitate from a solution....

 layers that stretch south from Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park is a national park located in southwestern Utah in the United States. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon which, despite its name, is not a canyon but a giant natural amphitheater created by erosion along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau...

 through Zion National Park

Zion National Park

Zion National Park is located in the Southwestern United States, near Springdale, Utah. A prominent feature of the park is Zion Canyon, which is 15 miles long and up to half a mile deep, cut through the reddish and tan-colored Navajo Sandstone by the North Fork of the Virgin River...

 and into the Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in the United States in the state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park, the 15th national park in the United States...

. In the 1870s, geologist Clarence Dutton

Clarence Dutton

Clarence Edward Dutton was an American geologist and US Army officer. Dutton was born in Wallingford, Connecticut on May 15, 1841...

 first conceptualized this region as a huge stairway ascending out of the bottom of the Grand Canyon northward with the cliff edge of each layer forming giant steps. Dutton divided this layer cake of Earth history into five steps from the youngest (uppermost) rocks:

• Pink Cliffs
  Pink Cliffs
  The Pink Cliffs are a series of highly-dissected cliffs, approximately 35 mi long, along the southeast edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau in southwestern Utah in the United States...
  
  ,
• Grey Cliffs,
• White Cliffs,
• 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...
  
  , and
• Chocolate Cliffs.

Since then, modern geologists have further divided Dutton's steps into individual rock formations.
Formations in the Grand Staircase starting with the youngest (uppermost) rocks:

• Claron Formation
• Kaiparowits Formation
  Kaiparowits Formation
  The Kaiparowits Formation is a sedimentary rock formation found in the Kaiparowits Plateau in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, in the southern part of Utah in the western United States. It is over 2800 feet thick, and is Campanian in age...
  
  
• Wahweap Formation
  Wahweap Formation
  The Wahweap Formation of the Grand Staircase-Escelante National Monument is a geological formation in southern Utah and northern Arizona, around the Lake Powell region, whose strata date back to the Late Cretaceous...
  
  
• Straight Cliffs Formation
  Straight Cliffs Formation
  The Straight Cliffs Formation is a Mesozoic geologic formation. Dinosaur remains diagnostic to the genus level are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation.-Paleofauna:* cf. Paronychodon sp....
  
  
• Tropic Shale
• Dakota Sandstone
  Dakota Sandstone
  The Dakota Sandstone is a general term for an ill-defined early Cretaceous formation of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. It consists of sandy, shallow-marine deposits with intermittent mud flat sediments, and occasional stream deposits...
  
  
• Carmel Formation
  Carmel Formation
  The Carmel Formation is a geologic formation in the San Rafael Group that is spread across the U.S. states of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, north east Arizona and New Mexico...
  
  
• Temple Cap Formation
• Navajo Formation
• Kayenta Formation
  Kayenta Formation
  The Kayenta Formation is a geologic layer in the Glen Canyon Group that is spread across the Colorado Plateau province of the United States, including northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. This rock formation is particularly prominent in southeastern Utah, where it is seen in the...
  
  
• Moenave Formation
  Moenave Formation
  The Moenave Formation is a Mesozoic geologic formation. Dinosaur remains are among the fossils that have been recovered from the formation, although none have yet been referred to a specific genus.-See also:* List of dinosaur-bearing rock formations...
  
  
• Chinle Formation
  Chinle Formation
  The Chinle is a geologic formation that is spread across the U.S. states of northern Arizona, Nevada, Utah, western New Mexico, and western Colorado. The Chinle is controversially considered to be synonymous to the Dockum Group in eastern Colorado, eastern New Mexico, southwestern Kansas, the...
  
  
• Moenkopi Formation
  Moenkopi Formation
  The Moenkopi is a geological formation that is spread across the U.S. states of New Mexico, northern Arizona, Nevada, southeastern California, eastern Utah and western Colorado. This unit is considered to be a group in Arizona. Part of the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range, this formation was...
  
  
• Kaibab Limestone
  Kaibab Limestone
  The Kaibab is a geologic formation that is spread across the U.S. states of northern Arizona, southern Utah, east central Nevada and southeast California. This geologic unit is part of the Park City Group in Nevada and Utah and is sometimes locally classified as a geologic group in Utah...
  
  
• Toroweap Formation
• Coconino Sandstone
  Coconino Sandstone
  Coconino Sandstone is a geologic formation named after its exposure in Coconino County, Arizona. This formation spreads across the Colorado Plateau province of the United States, including northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, Nevada, and Utah....
  
  
• Hermit Shale
• Supai Group
• Surprise Canyon Formation
• Redwall Limestone
• Temple Butte Limestone
• Muav Limestone
• Bright Angel Shale
• Tapeats Sandstone

Geology

The major sedimentary rock units exposed in the Grand Canyon range in age from 2000 million to 600 million years and were deposited in warm shallow seas and near-shore environments. The nearly 40 identified rock layers of Grand Canyon form one of the most studied geologic columns in the world. See geology of the Grand Canyon area

Geology of the Grand Canyon area

The geology of the Grand Canyon area exposes one of the most complete and studied sequences of rock on Earth. The nearly 40 major sedimentary rock layers exposed in the Grand Canyon and in the Grand Canyon National Park area range in age from about 200 million to nearly 2 billion years old...

 for details.

The oldest exposed formation in Zion National Park is the youngest exposed formation in the Grand Canyon – the ~240 million year old Kaibab Limestone

Kaibab Limestone

The Kaibab is a geologic formation that is spread across the U.S. states of northern Arizona, southern Utah, east central Nevada and southeast California. This geologic unit is part of the Park City Group in Nevada and Utah and is sometimes locally classified as a geologic group in Utah...

. The Bryce Canyon area to the northeast continues where the Zion area leaves off by presenting Cenozoic

Cenozoic

The Cenozoic era is the current and most recent of the three Phanerozoic geological eras and covers the period from 65.5 mya to the present. The era began in the wake of the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous that saw the demise of the last non-avian dinosaurs and...

-aged rocks that are 100 million years younger. In fact the youngest formation seen in the Zion area is the oldest exposed formation in Bryce Canyon – the Dakota Sandstone

Dakota Sandstone

The Dakota Sandstone is a general term for an ill-defined early Cretaceous formation of the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains. It consists of sandy, shallow-marine deposits with intermittent mud flat sediments, and occasional stream deposits...

. There are, however, shared rock units between all three, creating a super-sequence of formations that geologists call the Grand Staircase. Bryce Canyon's formations are the youngest known units in the Grand Staircase. Younger rock units, if they ever existed, have been removed by erosion

Erosion

Erosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...

. See geology of the Zion Canyon area and geology of the Bryce Canyon area

Geology of the Bryce Canyon area

The exposed geology of the Bryce Canyon area in Utah shows a record of deposition that covers the last part of the Cretaceous Period and the first half of the Cenozoic era in that part of North America...

 for details.

These layers have undergone 5000 to 10,000 feet (1500 to 3000 m) of uplift starting about 65 million years ago with the Laramide orogeny

Laramide orogeny

The Laramide orogeny was a period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the orogeny are in dispute, as is the cause. The Laramide...

 which has increased the ability of the Colorado River to cut its channel to make individual plateaus out of the Colorado Plateau

Colorado Plateau

The Colorado Plateau, also called the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. The province covers an area of 337,000 km2 within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico,...

s region. The major canyons of the region did not start to form until about five to six million years ago when the Gulf of California

Gulf of California

The Gulf of California is a body of water that separates the Baja California Peninsula from the Mexican mainland...

 opened up and thus lowered the river's base level

Base level

The base level of a river or stream is the lowest point to which it can flow, often referred to as the 'mouth' of the river. For large rivers, sea level is usually the base level, but a large river or lake is likewise the base level for tributary streams...

 (its lowest point).

Paleontology

In the 1880s, many large dinosaur

Dinosaur

Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...

 skeletons were excavated from southern 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...

 in regions north of the Grand Staircase. Following these discoveries there was little interest in further exploration. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries there has been greatly renewed interests in the strata of the Grand Staircase, particularly since the exposure and collection of new fossils in previously unexplored strata has a high probability of revealing fossil remnants of hitherto unseen species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 – a matter of substantial importance to young paleontological researchers wishing to advance in their profession.

Southern Utah has continued to reward researchers owing to its climatological "sweet spot" for exposing fossil remnants for observation and collection at the surface. At locations south, in Arizona, the climate is so dry that erosion is relatively slow. Further north, the wetter climates encourage growth of forests, which destroy fossils by the actions of roots and soil bacteria. In southern Utah, there are enough strong and wet storms to cause episodic rapid erosion and the consequent exposure of fossil remains, but with insufficient annual average rainfall to support destructive deep rooted plant life.

See also

• Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
  Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
  The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument contains 1.9 million acres of land in southern Utah, the United States. There are three main regions: the Grand Staircase, the Kaiparowits Plateau, and the Canyons of the Escalante. President Bill Clinton designated the area as a U.S. National...
  
  
• Road 400 – a primitive but usually passable road along the western margin of the Grand Staircase

External links

• Photo tour of Grand Staircase, from USGS