Painted Cove Trail at Painted Rock Unit

This red-colored hill is along the Painted Cove Interpretive Trail (in the Painted Hills Unit). The red color reflects the conditions of sediment deposition and soil development on an ancient floodplain. This ancient laterite soil (now a paleosol) formed in warm, humid conditions, much like in the southeastern United States today. The red strata occurs at the base of the John Day Formation. Brightly colored outcrops of a rhyolite tuff bed of the underlying Clarno Formation also crop out along the short interpretive trail.