Devil’s Slide, Utah

The Devil’s Slide in Utah, the United States, looks like a giant playground slide fit only for the Devil. The Slide consist of two parallel slabs of hard, weather-resistant limestone rock about 20 feet apart, some 40 feet high and 200 feet long. In between these two hard layers is a shaly limestone that is softer in comparison to the outer limestone layers, which makes it more susceptible to weathering and erosion, thus forming the chute of the slide.

The Devil’s Slide is the tilted remnant of sediments deposited in a sea that once occupied Utah is the distant geologic past. “Approximately 170 to 180 million years ago, a shallow sea originating from the north spread south and east over areas of what are now Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. This sea extended as far east as the present-day Colorado River and south into northern Arizona,” explains the website of Utah’s Geological Survey.

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Photo credit: Jimmy Emerson/Flickr

“Over millions of years, massive amounts of sediment accumulated and eventually formed layers of limestone and sandstone. In northern Utah, these rocks are known as the Twin Creek Formation and are approximately 2700 feet thick. About 75 million years ago, folding and faulting during a mountain- building episode tilted the Twin Creek rock layers to a near-vertical position. Subsequent erosion has exposed the near-vertical rock layers and created Devils Slide.”