How Did This Cliff Form?

[@shawnwillsey]

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[@RWBHere]

Definitely liked! Thanks Shawn. That's an astonishing formation. Just for scale, how high is that sandstone peak to the East of the fault, and how high are the cliffs in the background?

[@sandrine.t]

Wow! Amazing scenery and spectacular rock formations! Thanks Shawn, I've added Utah to my bucket list :)

[@Danika_Nadzan]

Mind-boggling age on the Uinta Mountain Group! It always amazes me that there are still places to actually see and touch rock from the Pre-Cambrian. The near vertical folding of the Madison Limestone reminds me of similarly folded formations I've seen in the Appalachian Mountains. Brief but informative video...thanks, Professor! 😊

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

The nearby Owiyukuts complex in Colorado is three times older, at 2.7 billion years. These are the oldest rocks in Colorado. It's postulated that they are a portion of the supercontinent Kenorland, which preceded Rodinia.

[@georgefrench1907]

Very useful look at a complex geological formation. Thank you.

[@cindy8426]

Beautiful! It's just amazing how all these structures formed.

[@daniellebrena5585]

Great video!

[@delilahboa]

Fascinating Shawn…… how incredible this planet of ours is, I’m forever in awe of it ….. thank you x👍🏻x

[@garyb6219]

Fascinating, thanks.

[@DennisCaffey]

Excellent video. I feel like I'm getting a PHD education watching your videos. Plus I get to see parts of the western US that are spectacular. Thank You.

[@susiesue3141]

Interesting as always. Thank you for sharing!😊

[@utahwaxwing]

thanks for sharing these observations! dates are hard to observe and verify, but the rest is so fascinating.

[@dianespears6057]

Thank you.

[@LizWCraftAdd1ct]

Love the folds and layers.

[@xwiick]

Thanks for all the hard work on these videos!

[@498chris]

Thanks! Always such great info. I wonder if this is the same as what is in Provo canyon-I have always been very curious about the “sideways” rocks there.

[@userpharnorth]

So very cool. I have to try and go there.

[@donnaduhamel6004]

Amazing..love desert!

[@sueellens]

Amazing! Thank you ❤

[@heden1460]

That was cool to see.

[@davidk7324]

Ok, I see a road trip to Sheep Creek in my near future. Thanks Shawn.

[@LouinVB]

Utah is cool! I lived in Salt Lake City for three years in the 1980s.

[@stellaandstone2348]

Thanks very much for this interesting post! Love seeing all the beautiful scenery and all the different rock formations and all the stories they tell. I live in flat northeast Indiana, so really appreciate seeing all the hills, valleys and mountains, and hearing about all the geology of the western US. I grew up in the Black Hills in South Dakota. Would love to hear about how it was formed. I remember hearing that most of it formed about 150 million years ago, with additional intrusions (Devil's Tower, Bear Butte, and others) at about 50 million years ago.

[@rockymaxiful]

Beautiful.

[@beeble2003]

In the diagram at 3:45, the limestone is shown as moving downwards, which seems a bit strange as it's consistently taller across the area shown in the video. Of course, that's not a contradiction -- tall things can move downwards -- but one's first guess would be that the taller rocks have been pushed upwards. Could anyone explain?

[@ericfielding2540]

The fault motion was 10's or hundreds of millions of years ago. The present topography is determined by which rocks are more resistant to erosion, and limestones are the most resistant rock in most places, including Utah. The ancient fault motion is not reflected in the topography today.

[@beeble2003]

@@ericfielding2540 Thanks!

[@hestheMaster]

Wow that is some old Madison limestone rock rising up, tilted and faulted. Knew the other sandstone layers were much older like 700 Mya plus. Thanks Shawn.

[@valbard6596]

Beautiful detail!! Geology is so interesting. Have you done a video on the geometric cliffs north of Monument Valley? Why do they look like precision cut blocks? Thanks for posting such interesting places on KZbin.

[@clydebennish2106]

Rock samples have lots more meaning with provenance... Id love to have samples of each side of this fault sitting on my desk. Thanks for the info and view.

[@marknovak2413]

The north side of the Uintas has a major overthrust. There are places where oil wells are drilled into the Precambrian rocks, through the thrust and into the Tertiary sedimentary rocks underneath.

[@cdineaglecollapsecenter4672]

Great video! I was just up in the Eastern Uintas but failed to get over to Sheep Creek Canyon. I was trying (but failing) to get into the Owiyukuts formation.

[@NipunTharaka-eg9lc]

Dear Sir, could you please explain about how did you identified this as a reverse fault?

[@seanleaverton8125]

Been there a few years ago amazing area, I believe I have a picture of this very formation

[@loisrossi841]

thank you.

[@ronm3245]

🎶Got to get Uinta my life!

[@toughenupfluffy7294]

Nice!

[@vampireslayer1989]

It looks exactly like the top Whirlpool Canyon in Dinosaur Natl Monument when you are rafting on the Green River (I'm pretty sure that it is the same rock sequence and Uinta tectonics. It has been years, but I will confirm when I have some time). Because of your last vid at Dinosaur, I was confused for a second. Sheep Creek Canyon looks interesting! That Uinta Mountain Group is just stunning in Whirlpool Canyon .......one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

[@MongooseTacticool]

Uintah mountains? Yeah, were into mountains! 😊

[@InSurrealtime]

In all my travels I never really explored the Uintas, I've been all around them.

[@revvyhevvy]

Love your posts, Prof Willsey! Have you posted anything about Leslie Gulch? That area is quite dramatic! Thanks

[@shawnwillsey]

Not yet. On the list.

[@BlutoFPV]

Looks a lot like the jagged mountains around Brigham City.

[@fallinginthed33p]

There's an unconformity of 400 million years between the Uinta and Madison formations. Any idea what caused it and why both layers are tilted so far towards the vertical?

[@maurinedoyle9964]

Would this have happened quickly or a slow time event?

[@bomaite1]

I have a question that has nothing to do with this topic. When I look at a map of Europe, I notice that a lot of large bodies of water run from southeast to northwest. Is this a coincidence, or does that have some other geologic significance? I am looking at the Caspian sea, the Red sea, the Persian gulf, the Adriatic sea and possibly the Baltic sea. Are those related somehow?

[@garyb6219]

If you google, Eurasian Plate, you may get some answers and explanations that may help.

[@codyedwards6922]

Shawn…I had a request for you on testing some soil samples from timeney bar. We are looking for vegetation remnants. Would you be willing to help out Randall Carlson on his journey?

[@raenbow66]

Hi!! 😁👍🏼

[@andyhampsten4252]

An interesting point (as a non-geologist) is that there were no plants and animals or sea shells and such before something like the Cambrian explosion at around .5 billion years ago whereas the Earth is 4.5 billion years old. Once tectonics and mountain building got going, erosion rates were high and created deep beds of sandstone, shale, etc. as in the video on left. For 4 billion years the Earth was a depressing, barren world of rock and erosion and algae and for half of that time the atmosphere was toxic to humans. The limestone has organic origin and has to be younger than this demarcation.

[@mhandy61]

Way cool

[@7inrain]

Being 350 million years old - doesn't the Madison Formation lie right in the Romer gap after the Hangenberg extinction event?

[@gunslingerjones8745]

Do you ever visit Colorado?

[@shawnwillsey]

Not as much as I want to.

[@johnlord8337]

Part of this Uintah Basin, Southeast of Salt Lake City, is that this basin is an asteroid impact zone of 110 miles x 110 miles. The asteroid impact event is the same time period of the Gulf of Mexico Yucatan Chicxulub asteroid impact of the same 110 miles x 110 miles. Both asteroids are 6 miles in diameter. The Chicxulub asteroid, impacted at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (K-T boundary), and is said (but now larger denied) that this was a dinosaur killer event of 60ish MYA. The Chicxulub asteroid is (said to be) buried 12 miles deep in the soft Gulf of Mexico water, sand, sandstone, and limestone. The Uintah Basin asteroid is believed to be 3-4-6 miles deep instead, with its impact going through the ancient Western Inner Sea Way waters of 2,000-3,000 feet depth, and the sedimentary and metamorphic rocky sea bed another 5,000+ feet in thickness. This thickness of sedimentary sea bed (253-60 MYA) housed what is the American trench, a massive fault zone spanning across the (now N-S alignment), east of the Rockies, from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, considered as part of the western border of the North American craton. As the Farallon plate slid under the ancient Laramidia, it uplifted the proto-West Coast, and the northern states, draining up the Sea Way waters. The uplift was so massive, that the 2,000-3,000 feet of sea water, and 2,000 feet of sedimentary and metamorphic rock was uplifted to the surface, with the other 3,000 feet of sea bed rock still buried at the surface. This 2,000+ feet of uplift has tilted, folded, scrunched into its massive geological features. Erosion has massively reduced much of this uplift, leaving pillars and other plutonic and sedimentary features. Eastern erosion of the Rockies and these uplifts continued (continues) to slough off sediments towards the ancient trench and that of the western lands of the Midwest. Part of these uplifts and foldings happened from the Farallon plate subduction under Laramidia, and the later Pacific plate further fracturing and splitting apart the Farallon plate to the west and east. The Uintah Basin fault would have also come from the asteroid impact.

[@mahbriggs]

Well, that was a bust! I got scammed into thinking there was an impact crater in the Unitah basin! Turns out it was just a flying saucer netball pushing some nut case theory about the Skinwalker ranch! No such crater! It is a hoax!

[@3xHermes]