The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountered as one goes westbound along the 40th parallel north across the Great Plains of North America.
The Smoky Hills are an upland region of hills in the central Great Plains of North America. They are located in the Midwestern United States, encompassing north-central Kansas and a small portion of south-central Nebraska.
The San Juan Basin is a geologic structural basin located near the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States. The basin covers 7,500 square miles and resides in northwestern New Mexico, southwestern Colorado, and parts of Utah and Arizona. Specifically, the basin occupies space in the San Juan, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, and McKinley counties in New Mexico, and La Plata and Archuleta counties in Colorado. The basin extends roughly 100 miles (160 km) N-S and 90 miles (140 km) E-W.
The Dakota is a sedimentary geologic unit name of formation and group rank in Midwestern North America. The Dakota units are generally composed of sandstones, mudstones, clays, and shales deposited in the Mid-Cretaceous opening of the Western Interior Seaway. The usage of the name Dakota for this particular Albian-Cenomanian strata is exceptionally widespread; from British Columbia and Alberta to Montana and Wisconsin to Colorado and Kansas to Utah and Arizona. It is famous for producing massive colorful rock formations in the Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains of the United States, and for preserving both dinosaur footprints and early deciduous tree leaves.
The geology of Kansas encompasses the geologic history and the presently exposed rock and soil. Rock that crops out in the US state of Kansas was formed during the Phanerozoic eon, which consists of three geologic eras: the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Paleozoic rocks at the surface in Kansas are primarily from the Mississippian, Pennsylvanian, and Permian periods.
The Pierre Shale is a geologic formation or series in the Upper Cretaceous which occurs east of the Rocky Mountains in the Great Plains, from Pembina Valley in Canada to New Mexico.
The Niobrara Formation, also called the Niobrara Chalk, is a geologic formation in North America that was deposited between 87 and 82 million years ago during the Coniacian, Santonian, and Campanian stages of the Late Cretaceous. It is composed of two structural units, the Smoky Hill Chalk Member overlying the Fort Hays Limestone Member. The chalk formed from the accumulation of coccoliths from microorganisms living in what was once the Western Interior Seaway, an inland sea that divided the continent of North America during much of the Cretaceous. It underlies much of the Great Plains of the US and Canada. Evidence of vertebrate life is common throughout the formation and includes specimens of plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, pterosaurs, and several primitive aquatic birds. The type locality for the Niobrara Chalk is the Niobrara River in Knox County in northeastern Nebraska. The formation gives its name to the Niobrara cycle of the Western Interior Seaway.
Colorado is a geologic name applied to certain rocks of Cretaceous age in the North America, particularly in the western Great Plains. This name was originally applied to classify a group of specific marine formations of shale and chalk known for their importance in Eastern Colorado. The surface outcrop of this group produces distinctive landforms bordering the Great Plains and it is a significant feature of the subsurface of the Denver Basin and the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin. These formations record important sequences of the Western Interior Seaway. As the geology of this seaway was studied, this name came to be used in states beyond Colorado but later was replaced in several of these states with more localized names.
The Cody Shale is a Late Cretaceous geologic formation. It is mapped in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.
The Carlile Shale is a Turonian age Upper/Late Cretaceous series shale geologic formation in the central-western United States, including in the Great Plains region of Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
The Graneros Shale is a geologic formation in the United States identified in the Great Plains as well as New Mexico that dates to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period. It is defined as the finely sandy argillaceous or clayey near-shore/marginal-marine shale that lies above the older, non-marine Dakota sand and mud, but below the younger, chalky open-marine shale of the Greenhorn. This definition was made in Colorado by G. K. Gilbert and has been adopted in other states that use Gilbert's division of the Benton's shales into Carlile, Greenhorn, and Graneros. These states include Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and New Mexico as well as corners of Minnesota and Iowa. North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana have somewhat different usages — in particular, north and west of the Black Hills, the same rock and fossil layer is named Belle Fourche Shale.
The Greenhorn Limestone or Greenhorn Formation is a geologic formation in the Great Plains Region of the United States, dating to the Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Late Cretaceous period. The formation gives its name to the Greenhorn cycle of the Western Interior Seaway.
The Thermopolis Shale is a geologic formation which formed in west-central North America in the Albian age of the Late Cretaceous period. Surface outcroppings occur in central Canada, and the U.S. states of Montana and Wyoming. The rock formation was laid down over about 7 million years by sediment flowing into the Western Interior Seaway. The formation's boundaries and members are not well-defined by geologists, which has led to different definitions of the formation. Some geologists conclude the formation should not have a designation independent of the formations above and below it. A range of invertebrate and small and large vertebrate fossils and coprolites are found in the formation.
The Belle Fourche Formation or Belle Fourche Shale is a fossiliferous early Late-Cretaceous geologic formation classification in Wyoming. Named for outcrops in Belle Fourche River, Wyoming, this unit name is also used in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
The Favel Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Cretaceous age. It is present in southern Manitoba and southeastern Saskatchewan, and consists primarily of calcareous shale. It was named for the Favel River near Minitonas, Manitoba, by R.T.D. Wickenden in 1945.
Timpas Creek is a stream in the U.S. state of Colorado.
The Fort Hays Limestone is a member of the Niobrara Formation of the Colorado Group exposed in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota and is named for the bluffs near the old Fort Hays, a well-known landmark in western Kansas.
Inoceramus cuvieri is an extinct species of the extinct genus Inoceramus of Bivalve mollusks that serves as an index fossil of chalky rocks of Turonian age of the Cretaceous Period in Europe and North America.
Juana Lopez refers to both the uppermost member of the Carlile Shale formation and to the environment that caused it to form. The Juana Lopez Member is calcareous sandstone dated to the Turonian age of the Upper Cretaceous and is exposed in the southern and western Colorado, northern and central New Mexico, and northeastern Utah. The unit has been described as "the most enigmatic" member of the Carlile Shale.
Fencepost limestone, Post Rock limestone, or Stone Post is a stone bed in the Great Plains notable for its historic use as fencing and construction material in north-central Kansas resulting in unique cultural expression. The source of this stone is the topmost layer of the Greenhorn Limestone formation. It is a regional marker bed as well as a valued construction material of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Kansas. This stone was very suitable for early construction in treeless settlements and it adds a notable rust orange tint to the region's many historic stone buildings. But the most famous use is seen in the countless miles of stone posts lining country roads and highways. This status gives rise to such regional appellations as Stone Post Country, Post Rock Scenic Byway, and The Post Rock Capital of Kansas. This rustic quality finds Fencepost limestone still used in Kansas landscaping today.
