Dragon Head (Arizona) is a elevation 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. It is situated in the north of the Hindu Amphitheater, ~2.0 miles west of

Shiva Temple A Hindu temple, also known as Mandir, Devasthanam, Pura, or Kovil, is a sacred place where Hindus worship and show their devotion to deities through worship, sacrifice, and prayers. It is considered the house of the god to whom it is dedicat ...

, and ~2.5 mi southeast of Grama Point (northeast of Point Sublime). Unlike the extensive

Ponderosa Pine ''Pinus ponderosa'', commonly known as the ponderosa pine, bull pine, blackjack pine, western yellow-pine, or filipinus pine, is a very large pine tree species of variable habitat native to mountainous regions of western North America. It is t ...

forest of Shiva Temple, tableland/plateau prominence, Dragon Head’s flat-topped (minor plateau), is only populated with a marginal non-Ponderosa forest.

is approximately 275 acres (0.43 mi²), where Dragon Head is an ~5 acre prominence platform.

Geology & Forests

The lightly forested horizontal platform of Dragon Head, is created because of the debris from the eroded platform of the

cliff-former A cliff-former is a geological unit of bedrock that is more resistant to erosion than overlying or underlying strata and consequently produces outcrops with high slope angles. It is more or less equivalent to ''ridge-former'', and may be contrast ...

Kaibab Limestone The Kaibab Limestone is a resistant cliff-forming, Permian geologic formation that crops out across the U.S. states of northern Arizona, southern Utah, east central Nevada and southeast California. It is also known as the Kaibab Formation in Ar ...

. (Cliff formers also produce platforms.) Below the Kaibab are

slopes In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a Line (mathematics), line is a number that describes the direction (geometry), direction of the line on a plane (geometry), plane. Often denoted by the letter ''m'', slope is calculated as the ratio of t ...

of the Toroweap Formation, on the shorter cliff of

Coconino Sandstone The Coconino Sandstone is a geologic formation (geology), formation composed of light-colored quartz arenite of Aeolian processes, eolian origin. It erodes to form conspicuous, sheer cliffs in the upper walls of Grand Canyon, as part of the Mog ...

, upon eroded slopes of Hermit Shale. The shale sits on the four units of the

Supai Group The Supai Group is a slope-forming sequence of mixed red beds and limestones that outcrop in the Colorado Plateau. The group was laid down during the Pennsylvanian to Lower Permian. Cliff-forming interbeds of sandstone are noticeable througho ...

, a colorful deep-orange-red, and layered by units 2 and 4 as cliffs, and units 1 and 3 as eroded slopes. The Kaibab-prominence platform created (~north-south), is caused because of the hardness of the Kaibab Limestone. Peakery.com states the prominence as 520 ft (158 m), which refers to the

and

Toroweap Formation The Toroweap Formation outcrops as a distinct layer of generally darker, interbedded slope- and cliff-forming strata lying between the brighter colored cliffs of the Kaibab Limestone above, and Coconino Sandstone below. It outcrops in Grand Can ...

slope; the peakbagger prominence includes the rock layers below the Kaibab. The Kaibab Limestone rests on an extensive slope of slope-forming

, which is more heavily forested than the Kaibab Limestone platform, (and the Toroweap slope-debris – is only sparsely visible between the forested trees; The Dragon (Arizona) is northwards, and upstream/upcanyon in the Hindu Amphitheater and closer to the forested-North Rim). The ridgeline that Dragon Head sits on is a mostly north-south ridge, and it is a heavily-forested platform of the cliff-former Coconino Sandstone. Grand Canyon AZ

The location of Dragon Head (miles north of the Colorado River, and closer to the North Rim), leaves it in a forested region. (Photo southwards showing Dragon Head and its ridgeline
/ref>) The parts of the Dragon Head landform that are not moderately vegetated – are the cliffs, and even some cliffs have partial vegetation (especially the eroded/fractured

prominence). The cliff sequence top (youngest) to oldest is as follows:
Kaibab Limestone
Coconino Sandstone

Esplanade Sandstone The Lower Permian Esplanade Sandstone is a cliff-forming, resistant sandstone, dark red, geologic unit found in the Grand Canyon. The rock unit forms a resistant shelf in the west Grand Canyon, south side of the Colorado River, at the east of th ...

(Supai unit 4)

Manakacha Formation The (Upper) Late Pennsylvanian (geology), Pennsylvanian Manakacha Formation is a cliff-former, cliff-forming, sandstone, red-orange geologic unit, formed from an addition of aeolian processes, eolian sand, added to marine transgression deposits, ...

(Supai unit 2)

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 ...

Muav Limestone The Muav Limestone is a Cambrian geologic formation within the 5-member Tonto Group. It is a thin-bedded, gray, medium to fine-grained, mottled dolomite; coarse- to medium-grained, grayish-white, sandy dolomite and grayish-white, mottled, fine-g ...

(short platform & cliff)
all sitting on slopes of dull-greenish

Bright Angel Shale The Bright Angel Shale is one of five geological formations that comprise the Cambrian Tonto Group. It and the other formations of the Tonto Group outcrop in the Grand Canyon, Arizona, and parts of northern Arizona, central Arizona, southeast Cali ...

References

Ext links

{{commons category, Dragon Head
Aerial view, Dragon Head, Mountainzone

Dragon Head photo, peakery.com (the prominence, and the extensive ridgeline)
Grand Canyon Grand Canyon National Park Colorado Plateau Mountains of Arizona Mountains of Coconino County, Arizona Two-thousanders of the United States