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The Checkerboard Mesa

Along the Zion Mt. Carmel Highway (UT 9), in eastern Zion there is a roadside pullout where one can stop and wonder at the sight of the Checkerboard Mesa. It is a mountainous formation rising 1000 feet above the surrounding plateau, which was naturally etched in an checkered pattern. According to geologists the horizontal lines were cut during the Jurassic period by blown sands of the huge sand dunes that spread out over the land while the vertical slits were formed much later from rains and melting snows.
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