Steamboat Mountain is a summit located in the Grand Canyon, in Coconino County of northern Arizona, US. It is situated four miles northwest of Holy Grail Temple, and 2.5 miles west-southwest of Timp Point on the North Rim. George Wharton James described it as a "majestic butte", nearly encircled by Galloway and Saddle Canyons.George Wharton James, The Grand Canyon of Arizona How to See It, 1910, Little Brown and Company, page 83. Topographic relief is significant as it rises over above the Colorado River in three miles. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Steamboat Mountain is located in a Cold semi-arid climate zone, with precipitation runoff draining west to the Colorado River via Tapeats Creek and Stone Creek. This feature's name was officially adopted in 1932 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
History In 1858, Lieutenant Joseph Ives led an expedition up the Colorado River, starting at the river's mouth and making it to the lower Grand Canyon. The mode of transportation was a steamboat named Explorer. Steamboat Mountain is located in an area of geographical features that were named after the canyon's early explorers. Steamboat Mountain is set at the northern tip of Powell Plateau, named for John Wesley Powell. Ives Point lies six miles to the southwest at the southwest tip of Powell Plateau. Also on Powell Plateau are Newberry Point, Dutton Point, Wheeler Point, Thompson Point, and Beale Point. These Grand Canyon pioneers are collectively commemorated by Explorers Monument, located immediately south of Powell Plateau.Randy Moore and Kara Felicia Witt, The Grand Canyon: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture, 2018, ABC-CLIO Publisher, page 74.
Geology
Steamboat Mountain is composed of Permian Kaibab Limestone, overlaying a conspicuous band of cream-colored, cliff-forming, Permian Coconino Sandstone.N.H. Darton, Story of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, 1917. The sandstone, which is the third-youngest of the strata in the Grand Canyon, was deposited 265 million years ago as sand dunes. Below the conspicuous Coconino Sandstone layer is slope-forming, Permian Hermit Formation, which in turn overlays the Pennsylvanian-Permian Supai Group.William Kenneth Hamblin, Anatomy of the Grand Canyon: Panoramas of the Canyon's Geology, 2008, Grand Canyon Association Publisher, . Further down are strata of Mississippian Redwall Limestone, the Cambrian Tonto Group, and finally Paleoproterozoic Vishnu Basement Rocks at river level in Granite Gorge.
See also Explorer (steamboat) Steamboats of the Colorado River Geology of the Grand Canyon area
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Weather forecast: National Weather Service