Paul presented us with a challenge that after the past few locations said Arizona, Utah or Nevada in the southwest USA. A quick search of northern Arizona lead me to Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, and to be more specific, the White Pocket area.
I supplied a link to an explanation of the geology in the area in
contest #553. The information is repeated below.
http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/03/white-pocket-vermilion-cliffs-national.html tells us that the entire area is covered in a gray rocky layer, sometimes only a few centimeters thick, above the red sandstone where the formations heave and drip that makes the entire landscape look like as if it was covered with icing sugar. In some spots the stone layers are completely twisted, just like an enormous marble cake.
The extraordinary geology at White Pocket is not easily explained. Some geologist proclaim that White Pocket is a result of “soft sediment deformation”, meaning the contortions and twisting and turning at White Pocket occurred back in Jurassic time while the sand was saturated and before the sand was completely turned into rock.
According to one retired petroleum geologist Marc Deshowitz, who studied White Pocket more than anyone else, believes the landscape was the result of a huge sand-slide mass, triggered by an earthquake, detaching from a tall dune and traveling rapidly downslope. As the mass slid and tumbled downslope, it ripped up chunks of laminated sand beneath that intermixed with the basal part of the slide. The sand mass eventually filled a large pond or oasis. This large sand mass is the featureless bleached-white sandstone or "cauliflower rock" seen today. The instantaneous loading from the sand mass caused pressure adjustments within the underlying saturated sand resulting in contortions and fluid escape structures such as sand volcanoes. Marc has identified at least 25 of these features supporting his theory.
Contest #554:
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here for a larger image.
