What formed Capitol Reef?
It formed between 50 and 70 million years ago when a major mountain building event in western North America, the Laramide Orogeny, reactivated an ancient buried fault in this region. Movement along the fault caused the west side to shift upwards relative to the east side.
What landforms are in Capitol Reef?
While the Waterpocket Fold is the dominant geologic feature of Capitol Reef National Park, the park also contains classic elongated “strike” valleys, dikes and sills, intrusive gypsum domes, massive landslides, fossilized oyster reefs, petrified logs, dinosaur bones, bentonitic hills, and unusual soft-sediment …
What are the names of the two main Triassic formations in Capitol Reef National Park?
Triassic sedimentary rock formations exposed in cliffs at Capitol Reef National Park, from bottom to top: Moenkopi Formation (brown, layered siltstone cliffs), Chinle Formation (bluish- to multi-colored, shale-dominated slope). The Jurassic Wingate Sandstone is the red, massive cliff-forming unit at the top.
What is Capitol Reef’s Waterpocket Fold?
Capitol Reef’s Waterpocket Fold is the defining geologic feature of this majestic national park. This wrinkle in the earth’s surface extends for nearly 100 miles, creating a dramatic landscape of rugged cliffs and canyons, striking natural bridges and arches, and distinct formations in the heart of red rock country.
Where is the Moenkopi Formation?
The Moenkopi Formation is a geological formation that is spread across the U.S. states of New Mexico, northern Arizona, Nevada, southeastern California, eastern Utah and western Colorado. This unit is considered to be a group in Arizona.
Where is the Chinle Formation?
The Chinle formation is exposed in the Painted Desert of northern Arizona. The Chinle’s colorful mudstones, and less abundant lenses of sandstone and conglomerate, were deposited by a large river system.
Why is it called Capitol Reef?
The park takes its name from one of the most interesting rock formations along the ridge: Capitol Reef. At the summit of the ridge, which runs through the center of this image, sit distinctive White Navajo Sandstone formations shaped like capitol domes.
What is Capitol Reef known for?
Located in south-central Utah in the heart of red rock country, Capitol Reef National Park is a hidden treasure filled with cliffs, canyons, domes, and bridges in the Waterpocket Fold, a geologic monocline (a wrinkle on the earth) extending almost 100 miles.
How was the Waterpocket Fold in Capitol Reef formed?
The Waterpocket Fold formed between 50 and 70 million years ago when a major mountain building event in western North America, the Laramide Orogeny, reactivated an ancient buried fault. When the fault moved, the overlying rock layers were draped above the fault and formed a monocline.
When did the Moenkopi Formation form?
~240 million years ago
Depiction of the Colorado Plateau region during the deposition of the Moenkopi Formation, ~240 million years ago.
How was the Cutler Formation formed?
Tremendous quantities of sediment were eroded off the uplift and accumulated at its southwest margin to form the undifferentiated Cutler, which in some places reached a thickness of 8,000 feet (2,400 m).
What does Chinle mean in Navajo?
Chinle is a Navajo word meaning “flowing through,” a phrase that once referred to the water that cruised down from the mountains to fertilize the valley.