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The Rio Grande rift is a north-trending continental rift zone. It separates the Colorado Plateau in the west from the interior of the North American craton on the east. The rift extends from central Colorado in the north to the state of Chihuahua, Mexico, in the south. The rift zone consists of four basins that have an average width of 50 kilometers. The rift can be observed on location at Rio Grande National Forest, White Sands National Park, Santa Fe National Forest, and Cibola National Forest, among other locations.
The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 70 to 80 million years ago, and ended 35 to 55 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the orogeny are in dispute. The Laramide orogeny occurred in a series of pulses, with quiescent phases intervening. The major feature that was created by this orogeny was deep-seated, thick-skinned deformation, with evidence of this orogeny found from Canada to northern Mexico, with the easternmost extent of the mountain-building represented by the Black Hills of South Dakota. The phenomenon is named for the Laramie Mountains of eastern Wyoming. The Laramide orogeny is sometimes confused with the Sevier orogeny, which partially overlapped in time and space.
The Laramie Mountains are a range of moderately high peaks on the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains in the U.S states of Wyoming and Colorado. The range is the northernmost extension of the line of the ranges along the eastern side of the Rockies, and in particular of the higher peaks of the Front Range directly to the south. North of the range, the gap between the Laramie range and the Bighorn Mountains provided the route for historical trails, such as the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the Pony Express.
The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sediments are deposited in very fine layers, a dark layer during the growing season and a light-hue inorganic layer in the dry season. Each pair of layers is called a varve and represents one year. The sediments of the Green River Formation present a continuous record of six million years. The mean thickness of a varve here is 0.18 mm, with a minimum thickness of 0.014 mm and maximum of 9.8 mm.
The exposed geology of the Bryce Canyon area in Utah shows a record of deposition that covers the last part of the Cretaceous Period and the first half of the Cenozoic era in that part of North America. The ancient depositional environment of the region around what is now Bryce Canyon National Park varied from the warm shallow sea in which the Dakota Sandstone and the Tropic Shale were deposited to the cool streams and lakes that contributed sediment to the colorful Claron Formation that dominates the park's amphitheaters.
The Colorado Plateau, also known as the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic and desert region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. This province covers an area of 336,700 km2 (130,000 mi2) within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, northern Arizona, and a tiny fraction in the extreme southeast of Nevada. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado. Most of the remainder of the plateau is drained by the Rio Grande and its tributaries.
The Uinta Mountains are an east-west trending chain of mountains in northeastern Utah extending slightly into southern Wyoming in the United States. As a subrange of the Rocky Mountains, they are unusual for being the highest range in the contiguous United States running east to west, and lie approximately 100 miles (160 km) east of Salt Lake City. The range has peaks ranging from 11,000 to 13,528 feet, with the highest point being Kings Peak, also the highest point in Utah. The Mirror Lake Highway crosses the western half of the Uintas on its way to Wyoming.
The Sierra Nacimiento, or Nacimiento Mountains, are a mountain range in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of New Mexico. They are just west of the more prominent Jemez Mountains near the town of Cuba, and are separated from them by the Río Guadalupe and the Río de Las Vacas. This article will consider them as a unit together with the San Pedro Mountains, which are a smaller range contiguous with the Sierra Nacimiento on the north, and which are also part of the Nacimiento Uplift and lie at the edge of the greater San Juan Basin, which sits atop the Colorado Plateau. The combined range runs almost due north-south with a length of about 40 mi (65 km). The highest point in the combined range is the high point of the San Pedro Peaks, known unofficially as San Pedro Peak, 10,605 ft.
Flat Tops Wilderness Area is the second largest U.S. Wilderness Area in Colorado. It is 235,214 acres (951.88 km2), with 38,870 acres (157.3 km2) in Routt National Forest and 196,344 acres (794.58 km2) in White River National Forest. It was designated a wilderness area in 1975. Trappers Lake, located in the north of the area, was the lake that inspired Arthur Carhart, a United States Forest Service official, to plead for wilderness preservation.
The Sevier orogeny was a mountain-building event that affected western North America from northern Canada to the north to Mexico to the south.
The Weminuche Wilderness is a wilderness area in southwest Colorado managed by the United States Forest Service as part of the San Juan National Forest on the west side of the Continental Divide and the Rio Grande National Forest on the east side of the divide. The Weminuche Wilderness was designated by Congress in 1975, and expanded by the Colorado Wilderness Acts of 1980 and 1993. It is located 4 miles (6.4 km) southeast of the town of Silverton, 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Durango, and 8 miles (13 km) west of South Fork. At 499,771 acres (2,022.50 km2), it is the largest wilderness area in the state of Colorado. Elevation in the wilderness ranges from 7,700 feet (2,300 m) along the Animas River to 14,093 feet (4,296 m) at the summit of Windom Peak.
The Zuñi Mountains are a mountain range located mainly in Cibola County of northwestern New Mexico, United States, with a small portion extending into McKinley County. The range is located largely in the Cibola National Forest, lying south of Interstate 40 from southeast of Gallup to southwest of Grants. The range is about sixty miles (97 km) long and forty miles (64 km) wide. The highest point is Mount Sedgwick, 9,256 feet ; elevations in the range go down to 6,400 feet.
The Chuska Mountains are an elongate range on the southeast Colorado Plateau and within the Navajo Nation whose highest elevations approach 10,000 feet. The range is about 80 by 15 km. It trends north-northwest and is crossed by the state line between Arizona and New Mexico. The highlands are a dissected plateau, with an average elevation of about 2,740 m (8,990 ft), and subdued topography. The highest point is Roof Butte at 2,994 m (9,823 ft), near the northern end of the range in Arizona. Other high points include the satellite Beautiful Mountain at 2,861 m (9,386 ft) and Lukachukai Mountains at 2,885 m (9,465 ft), both also near the northern end, and Matthews Peak at 2,911 m (9,551 ft). The San Juan Basin borders the Chuskas on the east, and typical elevations in nearby parts of that basin are near 1,800 m (5,900 ft). The eastern escarpment of the mountains is marked by slumps and landslides that extend out onto the western margin of the San Juan Basin. To the north, the Chuskas are separated from the Carrizo Mountains by Red Rock Valley, which is today commonly referred to as Red Valley.
The geology of the Rocky Mountains is that of a discontinuous series of mountain ranges with distinct geological origins. Collectively these make up the Rocky Mountains, a mountain system that stretches from Northern British Columbia through central New Mexico and which is part of the great mountain system known as the North American Cordillera.
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 Flat Tops is a mountain range located in Colorado within the Routt and White River National Forests. Much of the range is within the boundary of the Flat Tops Wilderness Area. While there are notable peaks in the Flat Tops, the dominant feature of the range is the high plateau from which the peaks arise. The plateau forms the northeastern portion of the White River Uplift capped by horizontal basalt flows from tertiary volcanic activity and is bounded by steep drops to valleys carved out by subsequent glaciation. The resulting mix of areas of treeless plateau at an elevation of 11,000 to 12,000 feet interspersed with verdant valleys is unique among Colorado mountain ranges. The area contains approximately one hundred and ten ponds and lakes and is home to a wide variety of plants and animals, including many large mammals such as moose, elk, mule deer, black bear, and cougars. This area has been affected by the non-native plant species, yellow toadflax. The most common trees are Engelmann spruce, subalpine fir and lodgepole pine, with aspen groves at lower elevations. The top of the plateau is alpine tundra.
The Grand Hogback is a 70-mile long, curving, spine-like ridge in Western Colorado that extends from near McClure Pass in Pitkin County through Garfield County and then to near Meeker in Rio Blanco County. The hogback is significant because it marks part of the boundary between the Colorado Plateau to the west and the Southern Rocky Mountains to the east.
The geology of Arizona began to form in the Precambrian. Igneous and metamorphic crystalline basement rock may have been much older, but was overwritten during the Yavapai and Mazatzal orogenies in the Proterozoic. The Grenville orogeny to the east caused Arizona to fill with sediments, shedding into a shallow sea. Limestone formed in the sea was metamorphosed by mafic intrusions. The Great Unconformity is a famous gap in the stratigraphic record, as Arizona experienced 900 million years of terrestrial conditions, except in isolated basins. The region oscillated between terrestrial and shallow ocean conditions during the Paleozoic as multi-cellular life became common and three major orogenies to the east shed sediments before North America became part of the supercontinent Pangaea. The breakup of Pangaea was accompanied by the subduction of the Farallon Plate, which drove volcanism during the Nevadan orogeny and the Sevier orogeny in the Mesozoic, which covered much of Arizona in volcanic debris and sediments. The Mid-Tertiary ignimbrite flare-up created smaller mountain ranges with extensive ash and lava in the Cenozoic, followed by the sinking of the Farallon slab in the mantle throughout the past 14 million years, which has created the Basin and Range Province. Arizona has extensive mineralization in veins, due to hydrothermal fluids and is notable for copper-gold porphyry, lead, zinc, rare minerals formed from copper enrichment and evaporites among other resources.
The Greater Green River Basin (GGRB) is a 21,000 square mile basin located in Southwestern Wyoming. The Basin was formed during the Cretaceous period sourced by underlying Permian and Cretaceous deposits. The GGRB is host to many anticlines created during the Laramide Orogeny trapping many of its hydrocarbon resources. It is bounded by the Rawlins Uplift, Uinta Mountains, Sevier overthrust belt, Sieria Madre Mountains, and the Wind River Mountain Range. The Greater Green River Basin is subdivided into four smaller basins the Green River Basin, Great Divide Basin, Washakie Basin, and Sand Wash Basin. Each of which possesses hydrocarbons that have been economically exploited. There are 303 named fields throughout the basin the majority of which produce natural gas, the largest of these gas fields is the Jonah Field.
Matchless Mountain is a high mountain summit in the Elk Mountains range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The 12,389-foot (3,776 m) mountain is located in Gunnison National Forest, 18.3 miles (29.4 km) east-southeast of the Town of Crested Butte in Gunnison County, Colorado, United States.
References
- ↑ "White River Plateau". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey.
- ↑ Mallory, William M. (1971). The Eagle Valley evaporite, northwest Colorado: A regional synthesis. Contributions to general geology — Geological Survey bulletin ; 1311-E. Washington: United States Government Printing Office. p. E2. LCCN 70-610530.
- ↑ Scott, R.B.; Lidke, D.J.; Hudson, M.R; Perry, Jr., W.J.; Bryant, Bruce; Kunk, M.J.; Budahn, J.R.; Byers, Jr., F.M. (1999). "Active evaporite tectonics and collapse in the Eagle River valley and the southwestern flank of the White River Uplift, Colorado". GSA Field Guides. 1: 97–114. doi:10.1130/0-8137-0001-9.97. ISBN 0-8137-0001-9 . Retrieved 2018-10-06.
- ↑ "Flat Tops Wilderness- White River". White River National Forest. United States. Department of Agriculture. Forest Service. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
The Flat Tops are part of the White River Plateau with an average elevation of about 10,000 feet.
- ↑ Tweto, Ogden (1980). "Summary of Laramide orogeny in Colorado" (PDF). Rocky Mountain Association of Geologists 1980 Symposium. Colorado Geological Survey. Retrieved 2018-10-07.
Coordinates: 39°47′30″N107°21′50″W / 39.79167°N 107.36389°W
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