Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park is a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

in southwestern

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, United States, located between

Mount Carmel Junction Mount Carmel Junction and Mount Carmel are unincorporated communities located east of Zion National Park and north of Kanab in Kane County, Utah, United States. They lie in close proximity to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park. Mount Carmel J ...

and

Kanab Kanab ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Kane County, Utah, Kane County, Utah, United States.Find a Co ...

, south and west of

U.S. Highway 89 U.S. Route 89 (US 89) is a north–south United States Numbered Highway with two sections, and one former section. The southern section runs for from Flagstaff, Arizona, to the southern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The northern sectio ...

in Kane County. The park features uniquely pink-hued

sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...

s located beside red

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

cliffs. The dunes are formed from the erosion of pink-colored

Navajo Sandstone The Navajo Sandstone is a geological formation in the Glen Canyon Group that is spread across the U.S. states of southern Nevada, northern Arizona, northwest Colorado, and Utah as part of the Colorado Plateau province of the United States.Anonymou ...

surrounding the park. High winds passing through the notch between the Moquith and Moccasin Mountains pick up loose sand particles and then drop them onto the dunes as a result of the

Venturi effect The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a fluid flows through a constricted section (or choke) of a pipe. The Venturi effect is named after its discoverer, the 18th century Italian physicist, Giovanni Battista V ...

. The dunes are estimated to be between 10,000 and 15,000 years old. The park allows camping, hiking,

off-road vehicle An off-road vehicle, sometimes referred to as an overland or adventure vehicle, is considered to be any type of vehicle which is capable of driving on and off paved or gravel surface. It is generally characterized by having large tires with dee ...

driving, and photography. There is a conservation area of , and the total grounds include . It was established as a Utah state park in 1963.

Sandboarding Sandboarding is a boardsport and extreme sport similar to snowboarding that involves riding across or down a sand dune while standing on a board, either with both feet strapped in or while standing loose, without bindings. Sandboarding can also ...

is also a popular activity, sandboards and sand sleds can be rented directly at the park. The Coral Pink Sand Dunes tiger beetle (''Cicindela albissima'') is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the dunes, being found nowhere else in the world. The park also contains most of the remaining individuals of the rare plant known as Welsh's milkweed (''Asclepias welshii''), a federally listed threatened species. Image:CoralPinkSandDunesSand.JPG, Sand from the dunes: grains of

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical form ...

with a

hematite Hematite (), also spelled as haematite, is a common iron oxide compound with the formula, Fe2O3 and is widely found in rocks and soils. Hematite crystals belong to the rhombohedral lattice system which is designated the alpha polymorph of . ...

coating providing the orange color. Image:Coral pink sand dunes state park.jpg, Part of the field of sand dunes. File:Cicindela albissima.jpg, Coral Pink Sand Dunes tiger beetle (''Cicindela albissima'')

References

External links

*
Official Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park website

Sandboarding in Utah
{{authority control State parks of Utah Dunes of the United States Sandstone formations of the United States Landforms of Kane County, Utah Protected areas of Kane County, Utah Protected areas established in 1963 1963 establishments in Utah