The House Range is a north-south trending

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

in Millard County, of west-central

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

. The House Range was named in 1859 by James H. Simpson. It was named by Simpson because "...of its well-defined stratification and the resemblance of portions of its outline to domes, minarets, houses, and other structures."

Geography

The House Range is bounded by Tule Valley to the west, Whirlwind Valley and Sevier Desert to the east, and trends with the Fish Springs Range to the north. The range has three notable passes: Skull Rock Pass (which US Highway 6/ US Highway 50 travels through), Marjum Canyon (which the old US Highway 6 travels through), and Sand Pass (which the Weiss Highway passes through). The highest point in the House Range is Swasey Peak, at . Other notable peaks include Notch Peak, a frequent climbing and base-jumping hotspot, and the very square Tatow Knob. It is also known for one of the tallest

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

cliff In geography and geology, a cliff or rock face is an area of Rock (geology), 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. ...

s in the world,

Notch Peak Notch Peak is a distinctive summit located on Sawtooth Mountain in the House Range, west of Delta, Utah, United States. The peak and the surrounding area are part of the Notch Peak Wilderness Study Area (WSA). Bristlecone pines, estimated t ...

Geology

The geology of the House Range is dominated by gray

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

carbonate rock Carbonate rocks are a class of sedimentary rocks composed primarily of carbonate minerals. The two major types are limestone, which is composed of calcite or aragonite (different crystal forms of CaCO3), and Dolomite (rock), dolomite rock (also kn ...

which was intruded by a pink

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...

granitoid in the central part of the range. In the Wheeler Amphitheater, away from the intrusion, the Lagerstätte that contains the well-preserved fauna is found in the Cambrian section of the range. Evidence of Lake Bonneville's presence is found both in shorelines and white

marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...

s at the base of the range. The main structural component to the range is a large basin-bounding fault on the west side.

Fossils

The range is known for a fossil

Lagerstätte A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserv ...

( Wheeler Shale) of

age, which has an array of Burgess Shale type fauna, including '' Elrathia kingii'', a

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinction, extinct marine arthropods that form the class (biology), class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most succ ...

that is one of Utah's most famous

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

Stratigraphy

The Swasey Limestone was deposited in the '' Bathyuriscus– Elrathina'' zone (contemporaneous with the

Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fos ...

). This is overlain in turn by the '' Bolaspidella'' zone (uppermost Middle Cambrian) Wheeler Shale and Marjum Formation, then the '' Cedaria'' zone (lowermost Upper Cambrian) Weeks Formation.

References

External links

{{Commons category, House Range, position=left Mountain ranges of Utah Mountain ranges of the Great Basin Mountain ranges of Millard County, Utah