Temple Butte, in the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...

, US is a prominence below the East Rim. The butte lies on the west bank of the south-flowing

Colorado River The Colorado River ( es, Río Colorado) is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico. The river drains an expansive, arid drainage basin, watershed that encompasses parts of ...

. The outfall from the Little Colorado River, draining from the Painted Desert to the east and southeast, is about two miles upstream. Temple Butte is in elevation. It is the historical site of some wreckage of the 1956 Grand Canyon mid-air collision. It was first thought that smoke from Temple Butte, was due to a lightning strike fire, but later was found to be the result of the mid-air collision. Chuar & Temple Buttes (TWA & UAL)

A closer view of Chuar and Temple Buttes.

Trails

The

Tanner Trail The Tanner Trail is a hiking trail located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park, located in the U.S. state of Arizona. The trailhead is located at Lipan Point, a prominent lookout located to the east of the Grand Canyon Village, ...

from Desert View, Arizona down to the Colorado River, follows the west ridgeline of Tanner Canyon, and has numerous views looking due-north to Temple Butte. The trail ends at a viewpoint on the upper surfaces of a

Redwall Limestone The Redwall Limestone is a resistant cliff-forming unit of Mississippian age that forms prominent, red-stained cliffs in the Grand Canyon, ranging in height from to . Lithology Redwall Limestone consists predominantly of light-olive-gray to ...

ridge. The Redwall Limestone is seen prominently below the East Rim, and is the cliff-forming shelf upon which the redbeds of the Supai Group accumulate.

Geology

The prominence of Temple Butte is composed of the upper unit of the Supai Group, ("redbeds"), the cliff-former,

Esplanade Sandstone The Lower Permian Esplanade Sandstone is a cliff-forming, resistant sandstone, dark red, geologic unit found in the Grand Canyon. The rock unit forms a resistant shelf in the west Grand Canyon, south side of the Colorado River, at the east of t ...

. The entire prominence is a much eroded, cliff remainder of the Esplanade, but the four units of the Supai Group, are compact, in an approximate north-south direction, with a large-

pyramid A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

-shape at the north, a pointed-pyramid at the south, and an eroded saddle in between. The Supai Group sits on the platform, upper surface of the

, on

Cambrian The Cambrian Period ( ; sometimes symbolized C with bar, Ꞓ) was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 53.4 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 538.8 million ...

rock units below. Another upper platform of the cliff-forming Muav Limestone, underlies the Redwall. (It is a double-platform rock unit.) The

slopes In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line is a number that describes both the ''direction'' and the ''steepness'' of the line. Slope is often denoted by the letter ''m''; there is no clear answer to the question why the letter ''m'' is use ...

of colorful

Bright Angel Shale The Cambrian Bright Angel Shale is the middle layer of the three member Tonto Group geologic feature. The 3-rock Tonto section famously sits upon the Great Unconformity because of the highly resistant cliffs of the base layer, vertical Tapeats S ...

are below. And below that are the short cliffs of

Tapeats Sandstone Except where underlain by the Sixtymile Formation, Cambrian Tapeats Sandstone is typically the lowest geologic unit, about thick, at its maximum, of the 5-member Tonto Group. It is famous for being the highly-resistant mostly-horizontal unit ...

, (typically bordering gorges and the Colorado River), famous for making the Tonto Platform, above the 1,000-million year old

Great Unconformity Of the many unconformities (gaps) observed in geological strata, the term Great Unconformity is frequently applied to either the unconformity observed by James Hutton in 1787 at Siccar Point in Scotland,Rance, H (1999''Historical Geology: The Pre ...

of lost time, and eroded rock units. The east strike (section) of the Butte Fault is on the west side of Temple Butte. The west section of the Butte Fault is the East Kaibab Monocline. The Butte Fault sections are north-south trending, and are part of the uplift of the

Kaibab Plateau The Kaibab Plateau is a plateau almost entirely in Coconino County, Arizona (but extending slightly north into Kane County, Utah) in the Southwestern United States. The high plain is also known as the Buckskin Mountain, Buckskin Plateau, and K ...

Access

Desert View is the closest paved route site to Temple Butte viewpoints. It is located on the East Rim, and is about east of Grand Canyon Village, on the East Rim Road, (

Arizona State Route 64 State Route 64 (SR 64) is a state highway in the northern part of the US state of Arizona. It travels from its western terminus in Williams to its intersection with U.S. Route 89 (US 89) in Cameron. Route description S ...

). Desert View is also west of U.S. 89, by way of Arizona 64.

Observation viewpoints

Temple Butte can be viewed from the south at East Rim, Grand Canyon viewpoints in the vicinity of Desert View, Arizona. Lipan Point, Desert View Point, and to the south Hollenback Point have views due-north into the Grand Canyon. About north of Desert View Point by unimproved road, or hiking is Comanche Point, a distance of 5-mi south-southeast of Temple Butte. An unimproved route, going north from Desert View, about 12 to 14 mi long ends at Cape Solitude; the point is adjacent the south canyon outfall of the Little Colorado River and canyon, with the Colorado River. Temple Butte is west.Arizona DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer, p. 32.

Gallery

File:Grand Canyon - panoramio (48).jpg, Cape Solitude,
Chuar Lava Hill,
Temple Butte &

Chuar Butte Chuar Butte is a prominent 6,500-foot-elevation (1,981 meter) summit located in the Grand Canyon, in Coconino County of northern Arizona, US. It is situated 1.5 miles northwest of Cape Solitude on the canyon's East Rim, three miles southeas ...

prominence File:Temple Butte, aerial from north.jpg, (aerial view)-Chuar Lava Hill,
Temple Butte,
Chuar Butte File:Chuar and Temple buttes.jpg, Chuar and
Temple Buttes File:Temple Butte, north aspect, Chuar Butte, East Flank - stratigraphy.png, Temple Butte,
(north aspect) and
(east aspect)
Chuar Butte (east aspect) File:Chuar and Temple buttes.jpg, A partial west
aspect of Temple
Butte.
shows Redwall on short
Muav Limestone cliff,
on Bright Angel Shale,
on Tapeats Sandstone
lining on the gorge edges

References

* Arizona Road & Recreation Atlas, Benchmark Maps, 2nd Edition, c. 1998, 112 pages, pp. 28–29, 62–63. * Arizona DeLorme Atlas & Gazetteer, 5th Edition, c. 2002, 76 pages, pp. 32, 24.

External links

Temple Butte, Eastern Grand Canyon, at Little Colorado River, (lat-long.com), coordinates, Coconino County, AZ
{{Geology of the Grand Canyon area Grand Canyon Landforms of Coconino County, Arizona Mountains of Arizona Mountains of Coconino County, Arizona