Mighty Mt. Garfield

This image of Mt. Garfield was made along I-70 near Palisade, Colorado is nearby but is not included within the confines of the Colorado National... more

by Jon Burch Photography

Title

Mighty Mt. Garfield

Artist

Jon Burch Photography

Medium

Photograph - Digital Capture And Enhancement

Description

This image of Mt. Garfield was made along I-70 near Palisade, Colorado is nearby but is not included within the confines of the Colorado National Monument. Garfield is the easternmost peak in the Bookcliff mountains with an elevation of 6765 feet above sea level forming the northern boundary of the Grand Valley near Grand Junction where the Colorado and Gunnison Rivers converge. Capped with Mesaverde Group sandstone, lower Mt. Garfield is made of gray, easily eroded Mancos Shale deposited during the upper part of the Cretaceous Period about 145 million years ago that followed the dinosaur inhabited Jurassic.

After spending a couple of very hot days in Colorado National Monument near Grand Junction, I passed by Mt. Garfield heading east about 8:30 in the morning. Talk about getting lucky with the light! Just had to stop along the highway and grab the camera. I digress, more on the formation itself.

Mancos Shale is an upper Cretaceous geologic formation of the Western United States dominated by mudrock that accumulated in offshore and marine environments of the Cretaceous North American Inland Sea. The Mancos was deposited during the Cenomanian through Campanian ages, approximately from 95 to 80 Million years ago. The Shale was first described by Cross and Purington in 1899 and was named for exposures near the town of Mancos, Colorado. Stratigraphically the Mancos Shale fills the interval between the Dakota Group and the Mesa Verde Group and rests conformably on the Dakota and in its upper part grades into and intertongues with the Mesaverde Group. The shale tongues typically have sharp basal contacts and gradational upper contacts.

The Plateau, also called the Colorado Plateau Province, is a physiographic region of the Intermontane Plateaus, roughly centered on the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States. The province covers an area of 130,000 square miles within western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southern and eastern Utah, and northern Arizona. About 90% of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries: the Green, San Juan, and Little Colorado.

The Plateau is largely made up of high desert, with scattered areas of forests. In the southwest corner of the Colorado Plateau lies the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. Much of the Plateau's landscape is related, in both appearance and geologic history, to the Grand Canyon. The nickname "Red Rock Country" suggests the brightly colored rock left bare to the view by dryness and erosion. Domes, hoodoos, fins, reefs, goblins, river narrows, natural bridges, and slot canyons are only some of the additional features typical of the Plateau.

The Colorado Plateau has the greatest concentration of U.S. National Park Service units in the country. Among its ten National Parks are Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Mesa Verde, and Petrified Forest. Among its 17 National Monuments are Dinosaur, Hovenweep, Wupatki, Sunset Crater Volcano, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Natural Bridges, Canyons of the Ancients, and Colorado. OK, that's it. Time for recess...

Image copyright 2013 Jon Burch Photography

Uploaded

August 25th, 2013