White Cone, Arizona – Bidahochi Formation

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White Cone is a hill in on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona. Made up of good amounts of the Bidahochi Formation, this sedmentary material was once part of the Bidahochi lake bed. The greenish clays indicate they were formed in a deep water environment without much oxidation, and freshwater mollusk fossils found within the Bidahochi Fommation further indicate the presence of a once massive lake, somtimes also called Hopi Lake.

Found on the fringes of this lake are fossilized ice casts and lacustrine bird fossils and tracks from Tundra and Canada Geese, indicating this lake existed during the Ice Age.

Some geologists believe this lake was thousands of feet deep and connected to another lake system which covered much of the Four Corners on the Colorado Plateau. Some theorize it was a breach of the nearby Kaibab Plateau and subsequent drainage of thousands of cubic miles of water through it which carved the Grand Canyon rapidly—rather than by slow erosion of from the Colorado River. -Nate Loper