The Geologic Story of Arches National Park / Geological Survey Bulletin 1393

by Stanley William Lohman

I am grateful to several colleagues and friends for the loan of photographs, for geologic help and data, and for reviewing this report. I am also deeply grateful to my wife, Ruth, for accompanying me on all the fieldwork and for her help and encouragement.

Selected References

Abbey, Edward, 1971, Desert solitaire, a season in the wilderness: New York, Ballantine Books, 303 p. Baker, A. A., 1933, Geology and oil possibilities of the Moab district, Grand and San Juan Counties, Utah: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 841, 95 p. Baker, Pearl, 1971, The Wild Bunch at Robbers Roost: New York, Aberlard-Schuman, 224 p. Beckwith, Frank, 1934, A group of petroglyphs near Moab, Utah: Santa Fe, N. Mex., El Palacio, v. 36, p. 177-178. Breed, Jack, 1947, Utah’s arches of stone: Natl. Geog. Mag., p. 173-192, August. Case, J. E., and Joesting, H. R., 1972, Regional geophysical investigations in the central Colorado Plateau: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 736, 34 p. Cater, F. W., 1970, Geology of the salt anticline region in southwestern Colorado: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 637, 80 p. —— 1972, Salt anticlines within the Paradox Basin, in Geologic atlas of the Rocky Mountain region, United States of America: Denver, Colo., Rocky Mtn. Assoc. of Geologists, p. 137, 138, fig. 4. Cleland, H. F., 1910, North American natural bridges, with a discussion of their origins: Geol. Soc. America Bull., v. 21, p. 313-338. Crandell, D. R., 1969, The geologic story of Mt. Rainier: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 1292, 43 p. Dane, C. H., 1935, Geology of the Salt Valley anticline and adjacent areas, Grand County, Utah: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 863, 184 p. Dellenbaugh, F. S., 1902, The romance of the Colorado River: New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 399 p. [reprinted 1962 by Rio Grande Press, Chicago, Ill.] Everhart, W. C., 1972, The National Park Service, Praeger Library of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies No. 13: New York, Praeger Publishers, p. i-xii, 1-276. Follansbee, Robert, 1929, Upper Colorado River and its utilization: U.S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 617, 394 p. Gilluly, James, Waters, A. C., and Woodford, A. O., 1968, Principles of geology [3d ed.]: San Francisco, W. R. Freeman & Co., 685 p. Hansen, W. R., 1969, The geologic story of the Uinta Mountains [with graphics by John R. Stacy]: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 1291, 144 p. Herron, W. R., 1917, Profile surveys in the Colorado River Basin in Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico: U.S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 396, 6 p., 43 pls. Hite, R. J., 1972, Pennsylvanian rocks, in Geologic atlas of the Rocky Mountain region, United States of America: Denver, Colo., Rocky Mtn. Assoc. of Geologists, p. 133-137. Hite, R. J., and Lohman, S. W., 1973, Geologic appraisal of Paradox basin salt deposits for waste emplacement: U.S. Geol. Survey open-file report, 75 p. Hunt, Alice, 1956, Archeology of southeastern Utah, in Geology and economic deposits of east-central Utah: Salt Lake City, Intermountain Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists, 7th Ann. Field Conf., p. 13-18. Hunt, C. B., 1956, Cenozoic geology of the Colorado Plateau: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 279, 99 p. —— 1969, Geologic history of the Colorado River, in The Colorado River region and John Wesley Powell: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 669, p. I-IV, 59-130. Jennings, J. D., 1970, Canyonlands-Aborigines: Naturalist, v. 21, Summer, Special Issue no. 2, p. 10-15. Joesting, H. R., Case, J. E., and Plouff, Donald, 1966, Regional geophysical investigations of the Moab-Needles area, Utah: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 516-C, 21 p. Keefer, W. R., 1971, The geologic story of Yellowstone National Park, illustrated by John R. Stacy: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 1347, 92 p. [1972]. Lansford, Henry, 1972, Boatman in the desert, a passenger-carrying sternwheeler in canyon country: “Empire” [magazine of the Denver Post], Nov. 5, p. 18, 19. La Rue, E. C., 1916, Colorado River and its utilization: U.S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 395, 231 p. —— 1925, Water power and flood control of Colorado River below Green River, Utah, with a foreword by Hubert Work, Secretary of the Interior, p. 1-100. [Appendix A, A report on water supply, by E. C. La Rue and G. F. Holbrook, p. 101-123; and Appendix B, A geologic report on the inner gorge of the Grand Canyon of Colorado River, by R. C. Moore, p. 125-171]: U.S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 556, 176 p. Lohman, S. W., 1965, The geologic story of Colorado National Monument [with graphics by John R. Stacy]: Fruita, Colo., Colorado and Black Canyon Natural History Assoc., 56 p. —— 1974, [The geologic story of Canyonlands National Park], with graphics by John R. Stacy: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 1327, 126 p. McKnight, E. T., 1940, Geology of area between Green and Colorado Rivers, Grand and San Juan Counties, Utah: U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 908, 147 p. Ouellette, C. M., 1958, Over the top of Landscape Arch: Desert Mag., p. 13-16, March. Pierson, Lloyd, 1960, Arches National Monument, in Geology of the Paradox basin fold and fault belt: Durango, Colo., Four Corners Geol. Soc. Guidebook, 3d Ann. Field Conf., p. 17-21. Schaafsma, Polly, 1971, Rock art of Utah: Cambridge, Mass., Harvard Univ., Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, v. 65, 169 p. Stacy, J. R., 1962, Shortcut method for the preparation of shaded-relief illustrations, in Short papers in geology, hydrology, and topography 1962: U.S. Geol. Survey Prof. Paper 450-D, p. D164-D165. Stokes, W. L., 1952, Uranium-vanadium deposits of the Thompsons area, Grand County, Utah, with emphasis on the origin of carnotite ores: Utah Geol. and Mineralogical Survey Bull. 46, 51 p., December. —— 1970, Canyonlands—Geology: Naturalist, v. 21, Summer, Special Issue no. 2, p. 3-9. Walters, H. H., 1956, Pacific Northwest Pipeline—The scenic inch, in Geology and economic deposits of east-central Utah: Salt Lake City, Intermountain Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists, p. 169-170. Williams, P. L., 1964, Geology, structure, and uranium deposits of the Moab quadrangle, Colorado and Utah: U.S. Geol. Survey Misc. Geol. Inv. Map I-360. Wilson, B. E., 1956, Arches National Monument, in Geology and economic deposits of east-central Utah: Salt Lake City, Intermountain Assoc. of Petroleum Geologists, 7th Ann. Field Conf., p. 50-51. Wright, J. C., Shawe, D. R., and Lohman, S. W., 1962, Definition of members of the Jurassic Entrada Sandstone in east-central Utah and west-central Colorado: Bull. Am. Assoc. Petroleum Geologists, v. 46, no. 11, p. 2057-2070.

Footnotes

[1]Mrs. Tanner, of Phoenix, Ariz., is the author of an earlier history of Moab (her hometown). She has completed a revision entitled, “The Far Country—A Regional History of Moab and La Sal, Utah,” which will be serialized in the Moab Times-Independent, after which it will be published.

[2]For the benefit of visitors from countries in which the metric system is used, the following conversion factors may be helpful: 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters, 1 foot = 0.305 meter, 1 mile = 1.609 kilometers, 1 U.S. gallon = 0.00379 cubic meter.

[3]Barrier Creek flows through Horseshoe Canyon in the detached unit of Canyonlands National Park. The canyon walls are adorned by striking pictographs ([Lohman, 1974, fig. 2]). “Barrier Canyon style” is named after the pictographs found in Horseshoe Canyon.

[4]Plastic-relief maps are no longer available from the U.S. Army Map Service but may be obtained from the T. N. Hubbard Scientific Co., Box 105, Northbrook, Ill. 60062. A topographic map at a scale of 1:250,000 of the Moab quadrangle and similar maps at a scale of 1:62,500 for the Thompson, Cisco, Moab, and Castle Valley quadrangles are available from the U.S. Geological Survey, Denver Distribution Section, Federal Center, Denver, Colo. 80225, from the Canyonlands Natural History Association at Moab, and from privately owned shops where maps are sold. Most of the park is covered by the Thompson and Moab quadrangles. The southern part of the park is shown also on the Moab 4 NW, Moab 4 NE, and Mt. Waas 3 NW quadrangles at a scale of 1:24,000. A special topographic map of Arches National Park at a scale of 1:50,000 is in preparation by the U.S. Geological Survey. These maps also may be obtained from the above-listed sources.

[5]This is numbered stop 1 in the booklet referred to earlier “The Guide to an Auto Tour of Arches National Park,” and corresponds to the numeral one on a small sign at the roadside parking place. Some of the other numbers are given in the pages that follow.