Upheaval Dome

            The movie Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi features a creature called the “sarlacc,” which resides in the middle of a desert on some far off planet. The sarlacc is a worm-like beast that buries itself in the desert sand, exposing only its horrifying, gaping mouth. The mouth sits at the bottom of a steep pit, which comes in handy in the event that some unknowing person or animal stumbles over the pit’s edge, rolling into the needle-like teeth at the bottom, which seem to know when food is near and begin gnashing away. Lucky for us earthlings, we don’t have to worry about the sarlacc, because it is supposedly light years away…or is it?

I think I may have stumbled upon a sarlacc lair in the Canyonlands over the weekend. The National Park Service likes to call it “Upheaval Dome,” but I’m guessing that’s to keep the Canyonlands’ visitors uninterested and calm around such a dreadful terror. The National Parks have got to make money, and if an average of ten visitors per day were disappearing over the side of an attraction called “Sarlacc Pit,” I would assume the money brought in by fees would drop considerably. Despite the fact that I did not witness an actual creature living in the middle of the crater, I really didn’t care to test my theory by climbing down and approaching an area that could have quickly transformed into a churning mouth of death and consumed me. Would you have?

To their credit, geologists have helped out the National Parks Service by coming up with three of their own mundane theories about how the Dome came to exist, which are openly displayed on placards at the top of a vista overlooking the natural wonder. The most plausible theory explained that a saltwater lake (probably part of Lake Bonneville) dried up leaving behind a thick layer of salt across the landscape. Over the years, other sediments covered up the salt, but the salt was apparently much lighter and viscous than the rock above it, so over time it slowly worked its way up through the weakest layers of sediments, creating a sort of salt bubble. When the bubble reached the surface of the land, it “popped” and crumbled in on itself, leaving a dome-like structure within a large crater. Boring, I say.

Another theory, the least plausible one (in my book), involves something geologists use, I think, much too often to explain geological phenomena: volcanoes. As far as I’m concerned, they may as well come out and say, “Aliens.” I have never physically seen a volcano in my life, and yet these “learned” geologists are constantly blaming them for things like creating mountain ranges or islands. Seems too easy to me. Reminds me of the Greeks and Romans always explaining away science with godly antics. I’m actually surprised the geologists don’t use the name Pele all the time when they try to justify their claims. Anyway, feel free to believe that a volcano created a dome within a crater in the middle of a canyon-riddled landscape, should you be so inclined.

The third, and most interesting, theory poses the idea that a meteorite came down at a relatively straight trajectory and blasted its way down quite a ways before stopping, creating a deep hole, which, much like the salt bubble, crumbled and created the dome inside the crater. Perfect place for a sarlacc to make its home, I say. Moreover, I would like to suggest that it probably was a sarlacc falling from space, and not a meteorite at all.

We may never discover what created the Upheaval Dome in the Canyonlands, but at least there are some reasonable explanations. I would love to lobby to have the sarlacc theory included somewhere on the placards overlooking the crater, preferably along with the meteorite theory, but I don’t want to cause unnecessary alarm and panic among the visitors to the National Park. I suppose for now I’ll keep it to myself, but once people start becoming really inquisitive and disappearing into the crater while scouting it out, I’ll come forward with my claim and people will stop looking at me like I’m crazy. Until then, though, I’ll allow everyone to enjoy and believe the other theories posed by the delusional geologists.