COMMON TYPES OF ROCK FOLDS. Top, anticline, or upfold; closed anticlines are called domes. Middle, syncline or downfold; closed synclines are called structural basins. Bottom, monocline, a common type on the Plateau in which the dip of the beds changes in amount but not in direction; axes may be mapped along trends of upper fold, middle flexure, or lower fold. Top and middle diagrams from Hansen (1969, p. 31, 108). (Fig. 27)
Early Deposits and Events
The broad inland basins that were formed late in the Cretaceous Period received sand, silt, and mud brought in by streams from the uplifted or folded areas. These materials became compacted into the Wasatch Formation—the red or pink rock from which Bryce Canyon National Park was sculptured. One such basin lay just northeast of the Monument. The Monument probably was covered by some of these stream deposits after the main basin was partly filled.
The mammals that roamed the area during the Paleocene Epoch were primitive, but more advanced forms appeared later, in Eocene time. Some of their fossil remains have been found in the Wasatch Formation in Plateau Creek Valley north of Grand Mesa and near Rifle, about 60 miles northeast of Grand Junction. The entire 5,000 feet of the Wasatch may be seen along U.S. Highway I-70 between the towns of DeBeque and Grand Valley, and much of it helps support towering Grand and Battlement Mesas.
Lake Uinta
In Eocene time the northern part of the Colorado Plateau sagged downward and gradually filled with water until it became a huge lake, now known as Lake Uinta. The waters in it teemed with plants and animals, particularly micro-organisms such as algae, whose remains, coated with calcium carbonate, settled to the bottom along with the sand, silt, and mud washed into the lake by streams. These sediments compacted into the remarkable Green River Formation which contains, among many rock types, large deposits of rich oil shale.
The light-colored Green River Formation, which is about 3,800 feet thick, may be seen from U.S. Highway I-70 in the upper part of the towering Roan Cliffs on the northwest side of the Colorado River between DeBeque and Rifle. It also underlies the volcanic caprock of Grand and Battlement Mesas. John R. Donnell, of the U.S. Geological Survey, estimated that the oil shale in the Piceance Creek Basin, northwest of the Colorado River alone, contains more than one trillion barrels of oil. The Monument was at or near the south shore of this lake, and may have been covered with a few hundred feet of the Green River Formation.