③ Molten rock flowed upward along cracks or faults. Upon cooling it formed lava at the surface and granite or pegmatite beneath.
④ During eons of time the forces of erosion wore down the mountains to a nearly level plain.
A Great Gap in the Rock Record
If you look down into any of the large canyons in the Monument, you will notice a brick-red formation, the Chinle, which forms steep slopes at the foot of the high cliffs and lies upon the dark Proterozoic rocks along nearly straight lines of contact. Such a straight-line contact is particularly well shown about midway up the high bluffs along the northeastern boundary of the Monument ([fig. 37]). If the red layer and all overlying rocks were stripped away, these straight lines would be the exposed edges of a remarkably smooth, nearly flat erosion surface on the top of the dark Proterozoic rocks, as shown in the last diagram of [figure 9]. A vast amount of time passed between the carving of this surface and the deposition of the red Chinle, and no record of the events during this time is preserved in the Monument.
During the latter part of the Proterozoic Eon and parts of the long Paleozoic Era that followed, the dark rocks were submerged beneath the sea several times and received sediments now found in areas to the northeast and southwest. Beginning in the Pennsylvanian Period some 330 million years ago ([fig. 61]), a large upfold of the rocks, or anticline ([fig. 27]), known to geologists as the Uncompahgre Highland, rose high above sea level, probably reaching its highest level in Late Pennsylvanian or Permian time. This old highland formed an imposing chain of mountains in about the position of the present Uncompahgre Plateau.
After the old rocks were pushed up into these high mountains what became of them? From the moment the mountains began to rise, their rocks were buffeted by wind, pounded by rain, pried open by frost, scoured by debris-laden streams and, perhaps by glaciers, and the loosened rock particles were dissolved or carried to the sea. Most rocks are brittle enough to crack when bent by Earth forces. Such cracks, called joints, are easy targets for erosion. The freezing of water in joints tends to pry the rocks apart. The breakup of the rocks was hastened by the chemical attack on rock minerals by water charged with oxygen and carbon dioxide. When land plants became established in later geologic eras, soil acids formed from decaying vegetation also assisted materially in breaking up the rocks.
These same erosion processes are going on today, but their effects are scarcely noticeable from year to year except in soft earth after storms or floods. During eons of time, however, the mountains were again worn down to a nearly level plain. Missing between the red Chinle and the dark rocks are many thousands of feet of rocks, some of which once covered this surface and still occur in other regions less affected by erosion. This gap in the rock record, which represents more than a billion years, is known to geologists as a great unconformity. Missing are part of the lower Proterozoic rocks, all the upper Proterozoic rocks, all those of the Paleozoic Era, and part of those of the Triassic Period of the Mesozoic Era. (See figs. [7] and [61].)