Navajos called the Painted Desert “Halchiitah” “amidst the colors. Located in the United States Badlands in the Four Corners from the Grand Canyon National Park into the Petrified Forest National Park. Much of the Painted Desert Region is within the Navajo Nation. The desert is composed of stratified layers of easily erodible siltstone, mudstone, and shale of the Triassic Chinle Formation. These fine grained rock layers contain abundant iron and manganese compounds which provide the pigments for the various colors of the region. Thin resistant lacustrine limestone layers and volcanic flows cap the mesas.