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Newspaper Rock

Newspaper Rock State Park is an archeological inscription site along route 211, the road to the Needles District in Canyonlands National Park. Inscriptions from many ages (ranging in thousands of years) have been engraved into the desert varnish (a natural dark patina of mineral precipitates on the surface of a cliff face of Wingate Sandstone). Note that the oldest engravings are darkest (with the development of a new patina). The youngest are brightest and show humans sitting on horses, and are therefore only a few hundred years old.

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