 |
| This view of Fewkes Canyon at Sun Point shows part of the Cliffhouse Formation of the Mesaverde Group (Late Cretaceous age, about 75 to 70 million years old). The Cliffhouse Formation is subdivided into a Lower Cliffhouse Sandstone (mostly obscured by vegetation in the lower canyon slopes) and the Upper Cliffhouse Sandstone that forms the upper massive cliffs along the canyon rim. Both sandstone units are about 100 feet thick. Many of the massive Anasazi pueblo ruins found at Mesa Verde are built under large overhangs at the base of the Upper Cliffhouse Sandstone. Fewkes Canyon is named after a Smithsonian archeologist, Dr. Jesse Walter Fewkes (1850-1930), who investigated the canyon ruins beginning in the late 1890s. After a long research career he later became the director of the Bureau of American Ethnology in 1918. |
 |
 |