The Horseshoe bend is only seen through a path near Page, Arizona. While walking up the path, there is a sandy hill. This sand used to be a big, existing sand dune that was hardened by water and minerals, so it turned into Navajo Sandstone, making it a smooth sandstone layer. After sandstone hardened, there were other layers such as mud stone that piled up on top of it to make different sedimentary layers. Then, patient water eroded away the layers. Now, the Navajo sandstone is exposed and slowly eroding.
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The path gets bumpier, which is the gravel, sand, and sloping rocking in the Navajo Sandstone. The rock has diagonal striped layer that are the ancient sand dunes before they were petrified into stone. The rock is calcite or limestone. 180 mya, this mixed with rain/snow that cemented the grains of sand together; the process took about 20 million years. There are hard sandy bumps which is the iron, attracted to itself while the sandstone was being petrified.
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The Colorado River goes around the Horseshoe bend that eroded away to make this shape. When it was being formed, the river was headed south toward the sea, so it went down the steepest slope. This caused the river to make meanders and circle which caused the river to cut through the layers of sandstone and create a horseshoe-shaped bend.