The Book Cliffs are a series of desert mountains and

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff is an area of rock which has a general angle defined by the vertical, or nearly vertical. Cliffs are formed by the processes of weathering and erosion, with the effect of gravity. Cliffs are common on coa ...

s in western

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

and eastern Utah in the western United States. They are so named because the cliffs of Cretaceous sandstone that cap many of the south-facing

butte __NOTOC__ In geomorphology, a butte () is an isolated hill with steep, often vertical sides and a small, relatively flat top; buttes are smaller landforms than mesas, plateaus, and tablelands. The word ''butte'' comes from a French word meani ...

s appear similar to a shelf of books.

Stratigraphy

The Book Cliffs are one of the world's best places to study sequence stratigraphy. In the 1980s, Exxon scientists used the Cretaceous strata of the Book Cliffs to develop the science of sequence stratigraphy. The Book Cliffs have preserved excellent strata of the foreland basin of the ancient Western Interior Seaway that stretched north from the Gulf of Mexico to the Yukon in the Cretaceous Period. Components of deltaic and shallow marine reservoirs are very well preserved in the Book Cliffs.

Wildlife

Large mammals found in the Book Cliffs include

coyotes The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological nich ...

, mountain lions,

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the I ...

mule deer The mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') is a deer indigenous to western North America; it is named for its ears, which are large like those of the mule. Two subspecies of mule deer are grouped into the black-tailed deer. Unlike the related whit ...

, elk, black bears, pronghorn,

American bison The American bison (''Bison bison'') is a species of bison native to North America. Sometimes colloquially referred to as American buffalo or simply buffalo (a different clade of bovine), it is one of two extant species of bison, alongside the ...

as an extension of the

Henry Mountains bison herd The Henry Mountains bison herd, numbering 250 to 400 bison, is one of only four free-roaming and genetically-pure herds on public lands in North America. The other three herds are the Yellowstone Park bison herd which was the ancestral herd for th ...

and

bighorn sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subsp ...

. There are also many small streams that contain a variety of trout species. In January, 2009,

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is part of the Utah Department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah in the United States. The mission of the Division of Wildlife Resources is to serve the people of Utah as trustee and guardian of t ...

officials transplanted 31 bison from the Henry Mountains bison herd to the Book Cliffs. The new group joined 14 animals previously released in August, 2008 from a private herd on the nearby

Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation The Uintah and Ouray Indian Reservation (, ) is located in northeastern Utah, United States. It is the homeland of the Ute Indian Tribe (Ute dialect: Núuchi-u), and is the largest of three Indian reservations inhabited by members of the Ute Trib ...

. Since this herd is located approximately north of the Henry Mountains, across mostly harsh, desert terrain, it should perhaps be considered as a separate herd, the Book Cliffs bison herd.

References

External links

*
Cretaceous Paleogeography - Showing Western Interior Seaway

The Soils of Western Colorado Mesa, Delta and Montrose Counties
{{authority control Cliffs of the United States Mountains of Colorado Mountains of Utah Colorado Plateau Mountains of Carbon County, Utah Mountains of Emery County, Utah Mountains of Garfield County, Colorado Mountains of Grand County, Utah Mountains of Mesa County, Colorado Stratigraphy of Colorado Stratigraphy of Utah Bureau of Land Management areas in Colorado Bureau of Land Management areas in Utah

Stratigraphy

Wildlife

See also

References

External links