Coast to Coast: From Rafe’s Chasm to Antelope Canyon
© Paul Erickson
June 24, 2026
From Cape Ann’s famous quarries to the Grand Canyon—holes, cracks, crevices, fissures, gorges, slot canyons, ravines, and chasms fascinate us.
Thank you Merriam-Webster Thesaurus.
One of our local geological attractions in the Cape Ann region of topographical anomalies is Rafe’s Chasm (once known as Rafe’s Crack). Located on the shores of Magnolia village, just outside Gloucester Harbor, this large crevice is a vestige of an ancient basalt dike. The dike formed millions of years ago when molten basalt magma blasted its way into a nearly vertical, preexisting fissure in Cape Ann granite. Because basalt is more prone to erosion than granite, over vast periods of time, the eroding basalt left an open chasm sandwiched within its more durable surroundings.
Warning if visiting Rafe’s Chasm: Please pay attention to the caution signs near the chasm. The attraction is located on private property. Falls and fatalities have occurred here. And given the irregular, steep terrain, it’s not a good place to walk a dog.
Earlier this year, while Rafe’s Chasm was battered by icy nor’easters, a different kind of crack in the earth’s crust attracted my wife Susan and I to a place located roughly 2,500 miles southwest of Cape Ann. There, in northern Arizona, I set out to photograph, for COSMOS, what I view as the eighth wonder of the world.
THE SLOT CANYON
Arriving on a hard-packed, high desert landscape in the Navajo (preferably Diné) Nation, near Page, Arizona and the Glen Canyon Dam, we gazed out at a hard-packed, reddish, Mars-like landscape stretching to the horizon. (Let’s add an expanded map showing location)
Mysteriously, as we awaited our tour guide at the entrance to the canyon, a human head arose from the desert floor. Then another, and another, as a tour group climbed out of a crack in the sandstone. They were winding up their hike through a narrow, yet easily hike-able, slot canyon called Lower Antelope Canyon. I recalled a scene from the 1951 movie Superman and the Mole People when Munchkin-like humanoids emerged from their deep, subterranean realm.
Now it was our turn to descend into the colorful, sunlit canyon.
Led by our friendly informative Dené guide, Susan and I, along with a small group of other tourists, descended a wide steel staircase to the sandy canyon floor, which at its deepest point is 120 below ground. There, astonished by our surroundings, we found ourselves spellbound among layers and swirls of sandstone resembling butterscotch taffy. Flash floods, rocks, and sandblasting winds have sculpted the smooth canyon walls for some 190 million years.
My brief travel log basically ends here—the accompanying photos best describe the experience.
FYI
1. “Antelope” in Antelope Canyon is a misnomer. Most likely, English-speaking migrants incorrectly called North American pronghorns, antelopes. True antelopes are native to Africa and Asia, not North America.
2. Dené means “the people.” In addition to Navajos, the name encompasses a wider group of Athabaskan language speakers, including the Apache.
3. Tragically, in 1997, 11 visitors died when a flash flood generated by a distant thunderstorm gushed through Lower Antelope Canyon. Subsequently, the Navajo (Dené) Nation closed the canyon for about a year. During that time, intruders vandalized this geological and cultural treasure. As a result, the Navajo people eventually opened up the canyon to protect it and provide enhanced safety precautions. Today, no one may enter the Upper or Lower Antelope canyons without an indigenous guide and advance reservations.
PAUL ERICKSON
Science Editor
Paul trained in life sciences at Bates College and is a natural history writer, diver, and photographer. He worked at the New England Aquarium for 26 years and served as an on-camera correspondent for many programs, including ABC’s Good Morning America and WBZ-TV’s Eyewitness News, Evening Magazine. He has also worked as an educator at the Glen Urquhart School and aboard the Salem-based Sea Shuttle Endeavour. Paul has photographed underwater habitats in the Red Sea, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Belize, the Philippines, New England and Loch Ness, Scotland. His latest books, published by Tilbury House, are Don’t Mess with Me: The Strange Lives of Venomous Sea Creatures and The Pier at the End of the World. Paul lives in Ipswich.
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