Cheops Pyramid is a summit located in the

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon 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 mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...

, in

Coconino County Coconino County is a County (United States), county in the North Central Arizona, North-Central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. Its population was 145,101 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The county seat is Flagstaff, Arizon ...

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

, US.

Description

This butte is situated four miles north of

Grand Canyon Village Grand Canyon Village is a census-designated place (CDP) located on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, in Coconino County, Arizona, United States. Its population was 2,004 at the 2010 Census. Located in Grand Canyon National Park, it is wholly ...

, 2.5 miles south-southwest of Buddha Temple, and 1.7 mile south-southeast of

Isis Temple Isis Temple is a prominence in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, Southwestern United States. It is located below the North Rim and adjacent to the Granite Gorge along the Colorado River. The Trinity Creek and canyon flow due south at its west border ...

, which is the nearest higher neighbor.

Topographic relief Terrain (), alternatively relief or topographical relief, is the dimension and shape of a given surface of land. In physical geography, terrain is the lay of the land. This is usually expressed in terms of the elevation, slope, and orientati ...

is significant as it rises above the

Colorado River The Colorado River () is one of the principal rivers (along with the Rio Grande) in the Southwestern United States and in northern Mexico. The river, the List of longest rivers of the United States (by main stem), 5th longest in the United St ...

in 1.5 mile. It was named by

George Wharton James George Wharton James (27 September 1858 – 8 November 1923) was an American popular lecturer, photographer, journalist and editor. Born in Lincolnshire, England, he emigrated to the United States as a young man after being ordained as a Method ...

for the fanciful resemblance to the famous pyramid constructed by Egyptian Pharaoh Cheops. This was in keeping with

Clarence Dutton Clarence Edward Dutton (May 15, 1841 – January 4, 1912) was an American geologist and US Army officer. Dutton was born in Wallingford, Connecticut on May 15, 1841. He graduated from Yale College in 1860 and took postgraduate courses there until ...

's tradition of naming geographical features in the Grand Canyon after mythological deities. This butte's toponym was officially adopted in 1906 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. According to the

Köppen climate classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Cheops Pyramid is located in a

Cold semi-arid climate Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic ...

zone.

Geology

Cheops Pyramid is a flat-topped erosional remnant composed of Mississippian

Redwall Limestone The Redwall Limestone is an erosion-resistant, Mississippian age, cliff-former, cliff-forming geological formation that forms prominent, red-stained cliffs in the Grand Canyon. these cliffs range in height from to . It is one of the most fossili ...

, overlaying the green shale slopes of the

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

Tonto Group The Tonto Group is a name for an assemblage of related sedimentary strata, collectively known by geologists as a '' Group'', that comprises the basal sequence Paleozoic strata exposed in the sides of the Grand Canyon. As currently defined, the T ...

, and below that red shale and

Shinumo Quartzite The Shinumo Quartzite also known as the Shinumo Sandstone, is a Mesoproterozoic rock formation, which outcrops in the eastern Grand Canyon, Coconino County, Arizona, ( Northern Arizona). It is the 3rd member of the 5-unit Unkar Group. The Shinum ...

of the

Proterozoic The Proterozoic ( ) is the third of the four geologic eons of Earth's history, spanning the time interval from 2500 to 538.8 Mya, and is the longest eon of Earth's geologic time scale. It is preceded by the Archean and followed by the Phanerozo ...

Unkar Group The Unkar Group is a sequence of strata of Proterozoic age that are subdivided into five geologic formations and exposed within the Grand Canyon, Arizona, Southwestern United States. The Unkar Group is the basal formation of the Grand Canyon S ...

.N.H. Darton, ''Story of the Grand Canyon of Arizona'', 1917, pages 26, 37. Precipitation runoff from Cheops Pyramid drains south to the

via Phantom Creek (east), and Ninetyone Mile Creek (west).

Gallery

File:Isis, Buddha, Cheops.jpg, Isis Temple left, Cheops Pyramid in front, Buddha Temple right of center in back. File:GrandCanyon2010.jpg, Isis Temple left, Cheops Pyramid right File:Cheops Pyramid and Buddha Temple, Grand Canyon 2005.jpg, Cheops Pyramid (left) and Buddha Temple (right), seen from junction of the Tonto West Trail and Bright Angel Trail File:Cheops Pyramid from Bright Angel Trail.jpg, Southeast aspect from Bright Angel Trail File:Isis Temple and Cheops Pyramid.jpg, Isis Temple left, Cheops Pyramid right File:Hopi Point sunset.jpg, Cheops Pyramid in bullseye, from Hopi Point File:Grand Canyon National Park Hermit Rd Maricopa Point 0680 (6149171110).jpg, Cheops Pyramid below onlookers at Maricopa Point File:Cheops Pyramid.jpg File:Cheops, Buddha, Grand Canyon.jpg, Cheops Pyramid (left) and Buddha Temple (right)

References

External links

* Weather forecast
Cheops Pyramid
{{Geology of the Grand Canyon area, , state=collapsed Grand Canyon Landforms of Coconino County, Arizona Mountains of Arizona Mountains of Coconino County, Arizona Colorado Plateau Grand Canyon National Park One-thousanders of the United States

Description

Geology

See also

Gallery

References

External links