What We Inventory

Managing problematic social trails and formalizing trail networks requires careful consideration. As part of this management need, the Southern Colorado Plateau Network conducted a breeding bird inventory at Petroglyph National Monument, especially along a unique rocky escarpment which may represent important raptor breeding habitat.

From inventory data, to long-term monitoring data sets, to special projects, Southern Colorado Plateau Network data on vegetation communities, wildlife, and hydrology has informed much of the work being done in the network’s 19 parks.

Each park-specific page in the NPS Geodiversity Atlas provides basic information on the significant geologic features and processes occurring in the park. Links to products from Baseline Geologic and Soil Resources Inventories provide access to maps and reports.

Each park-specific page in the NPS Geodiversity Atlas provides basic information on the significant geologic features and processes occurring in the park. Links to products from Baseline Geologic and Soil Resources Inventories provide access to maps and reports.

Each park-specific page in the NPS Geodiversity Atlas provides basic information on the significant geologic features and processes occurring in the park.

Each park-specific page in the NPS Geodiversity Atlas provides basic information on the significant geologic features and processes occurring in the park. Links to products from Baseline Geologic and Soil Resources Inventories provide access to maps and reports.

El Malpais National Monument, the “badlands,” contains an especially rugged volcanic landscape of young basaltic lava flows, cinder cone volcanoes, and other volcanic landforms and features. It is located in the Zuni-Bandera Volcanic Field in New Mexico where the most recent eruption took place 3,900 years ago. The monument contains one of the longest lava tube systems in the world.

Inscription Rock in El Morro National Monument contains approximately 2,000 inscriptions, petroglyphs, and pictographs carved into the Zuni Sandstone at the base of El Morro. El Morro (“the headland”) was an important landmark for ancestral Puebloan people, Spanish explorers and settlers, and a variety of European American travelers.

Each park-specific page in the NPS Geodiversity Atlas provides basic information on the significant geologic features and processes occurring in the park. Links to products from Baseline Geologic and Soil Resources Inventories provide access to maps and reports.

Grand Canyon National Park is one of the premiere geologic sites in the world. It contains an exceptional rock record ranging from the Precambrian (Proterozoic) through the Paleozoic and is one of the best places get a sense of geologic time. The park also has young volcanic deposits, a rich fossil record, many springs and seeps, an extensive mining history, and has played a major role in the development of the geological sciences in the United States.