Shell Falls is a

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

in the

Bighorn National Forest The Bighorn National Forest is a U.S. National Forest located in northern Wyoming, United States and consists of over 1.1 million acres (4,500 km2). Created as a US Forest reserve, Forest Reserve in 1897, it is one of the oldest government- ...

on Shell Creek, about halfway down Shell Canyon, and a few miles upstream from the town of

Shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

in northeast

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

. The falls are in height and tumble over basement rock of

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

. From the rest area and interpretive center, one can see outcrops of the Cambrian flathead sandstone, about 550 million years old, resting on 2.9 billion year old

Precambrian The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...

rocks—some of the oldest rocks on earth. Visitors can also see "Copman's Tomb", a massive

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

promontory to the north. Image:Copmans Tomb.jpg, Copman's Tomb by Karyne Dickson. Image:Shell Interpretive Center.jpg, Shell Falls Interpretive Center.

References

External links

PDF Brochure ''Shell Falls''Bighorn National Forest Official SiteGo Waterfalling Site
{{Authority control Protected areas of Big Horn County, Wyoming Waterfalls of Wyoming Landforms of Big Horn County, Wyoming

See also

References

External links