Swilling Butte is a -elevation ridgeline summit located in the eastern

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 ...

of northern

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 ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The landform is in a group of nearby summits,

Colter Butte Colter Butte is a summit located in the Grand Canyon in Coconino County of northern Arizona, US. It is situated four miles southeast of Point Imperial, where it towers above Nankoweap Canyon. Its neighbors include Brady Peak, 2.5 miles to the ...

, west, and Hutton and Duppa Buttes, east. All four buttes are at the north of the east-flowing Kwagunt Creek and Canyon drainage to 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 ...

. Swilling Butte is northeast of Atoko Point, East Rim of the Walhalla Plateau (

Kaibab Plateau The Kaibab Plateau is a plateau almost entirely in Coconino County, Arizona (but extending slightly north into Kane County, Utah) in the Southwestern United States. The high plain is also known as the Buckskin Mountain, Buckskin Plateau, and Ka ...

, North Rim), and west of the (north)-East Rim, Grand Canyon; the south-flowing Colorado River is west and adjacent to the East Rim. Swilling Butte is a triangular-platformSwilling Butte, (map elevations & contours), Lists of John
/ref> summit of bright-red, tall

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 ...

. Being a

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 ...

, the Redwall is also a platform-former. The upper platform of the Redwall Limestone supports a remainder-debris 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 4-unit group). Of the two lower units, no. 2 is a cliff-former, hard rocks (cliffs), of the

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, ...

; the

slope-former A slope-former is a unit of bedrock which is less resistant to erosion than overlying or underlying units and consequently results in outcrops with low relative slope angles. It may be contrasted with cliff-former. Typical slope forming lithol ...

, (unit no. 1), the

Watahomigi Formation The Watahomigi Formation is a geologic formation in the Grand Canyon region of Arizona. It preserves fossils dating back to the Carboniferous period. See also * List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Arizona * Paleontology in Ariz ...

, forms most of the Supai debris upon the Redwall. Below the Redwall Limestone are members 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 ...

, the

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 ...

and the

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

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 ...

Citations

External links

{{commons category, Redwall Limestone platform
Aerial view, Swilling Butte, MountainzoneSwilling Butte photo
by

Harvey Butchart John Harvey Butchart (May 10, 1907 – May 29, 2002) was an American hiker and mathematician who was well known for his exploits in and around the Grand Canyon in Arizona, United States. Beginning in 1945, Butchart explored the Grand Canyon's bac ...

Buttes of Arizona Colorado Plateau Grand Canyon, North Rim Grand Canyon Grand Canyon National Park Landforms of Coconino County, Arizona Two-thousanders of the United States