Mesa Verde National Park, is a national park in Montezuma County, Colorado. It is noted to be the largest national park in the United States. It has a huge archaeological preserve too, which makes it unique in its own way. To save the cliff dwellings of the park, President Roosevelt brought up a plan in early 1900’s to “preserve the works of man” as he stated that time. Successfully the national park was established on June 29, 1906. Also, to this date it is the only cultural National Park set that is separate from the national park system. Mesa Verde means green table. Mesa Verde has a rich history connected to it which gives a clear vision about the lives of Ancestral Pueblo. Ancestral Pueblo were the first settlers who call Mesa Verde …show more content…
The reason behind is that Mesas are remote, flat top highlands with slopes on the side of cliffs with hard rocks on top to save from wearing down. The covering of the rocks is beneficial factor for the cliffs as they protect the site to be dusted away. Whereas, Cuesta refers to the sites which dips more in one direction and made up of numbers of mesas together. The overall picture of the Mesa Verde National Park doesn’t match with its name that much but, now this is the only prime identification or recognition of this beautiful archeological site. One of the unique formation at this beautiful site is caused by water that seeps into cracks, icing and softening in them which is known as Alcove formation. This process leads to pushing the rocks apart, due to which they fall apart and creates the Alcoves. The rocks were also used by the Ancestral Puebloans for structure purposes. Basically, Alcove formation is supported by water which pours and saturates through the holes in the sandstone. Finally, the water reaches a layer of shale, which is less absorbent, or more absorbent, than the sandstone. Shale doesn’t allow water to pass through it which results everything passing on top of the