page_title: Cardenas Basalt
section_title: Tanner Trail, Lava Butte
hierarchical_section_title: Cardenas Basalt / Tanner Trail, Lava Butte
caption_attribution_description: Con rocas de hasta 1,840 millones de años, el cañón se formó en apenas 6 millones de años. La efímera caricia de un río a su inmortal amante de roca.
context_page_description: The Cardenas Basalt, also known as either the Cardenas Lava or Cardenas Lavas, is a rock formation that outcrops over an area of about 310 km² in the eastern Grand Canyon, Coconino County, Arizona. The lower part of the Cardenas Basalt forms granular talus slopes. Its upper part forms nearly continuous low cliffs that are parallel to the general course of the Colorado River. The most complete, readily accessible, and easily studied exposure of the Cardenas Basalt lies in Basalt Canyon. This is also its type locality.
  The Cardenas Basalt is part of the Unkar Group. The Unkar Group is about 1,600 to 2,200 m thick and composed, in ascending order, of the Bass Formation, Hakatai Shale, Shinumo Quartzite, Dox Formation, and Cardenas Basalt. In ascending order, the Cardenas Basalt is overlain by the Nankoweap Formation, about 113 to 150 m thick; the Chuar Group, about 1,900 m thick; and the Sixtymile Formation, about 60 m thick. The Grand Canyon Supergroup, of which the Unkar Group is the lowermost part, overlies deeply eroded granites, gneisses, pegmatites, and schists that comprise Vishnu Basement Rocks.
  The Cardenas Basalt has also been called the Rama Formation.
context_section_description: The Tanner Trail from Desert View point region to the Colorado River, has views north to the Colorado River and Lava Butte, which is made of the Cardenas Basalt and is one of the ancient topographic highs (monadnocks) and lies directly north. Temple Butte, the Palisades of the Desert, is on the East Rim, to the right (east) of Lava Butte. The buttes lie on the west bank of the Colorado River as it flows due-south on the east, southeast side of the Kaibab Plateau, (Cape Royal at Walhalla Plateau). The Colorado River immediately turns due-west here to soon enter the Granite Gorge region (East Inner Gorge), which is made up of the Vishnu Basement Rocks.
caption: dk-black Lava Butte in front of the massive Chuar Butte
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